


Phoenix Rising

by tuesdaymidnight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Music, Permanent Injury, Post - Deathly Hallows, Prophecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaymidnight/pseuds/tuesdaymidnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years after the war, Draco is a successful organ tuner living in London, but he is still burdened by the effects of the war. Dark magic left him with a crippled body and, he sometimes worries, an empty heart. By chance he spots Harry in Muggle London, and the old feelings he once had for him rush back. When mutual friends express concern about Harry, it prompts Draco to seek him out. Draco is surprised but intrigued by Harry's interest in prophecy and seers, and he finds himself falling for Harry all over again. The only problem is figuring out if Harry could possibly return his feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix Rising

**Author's Note:**

  * For [susannah_wilde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/susannah_wilde/gifts).



> **Content/Enticements:** Post-war, EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Permanent Injury, Music, Prophecy, Draco in the Muggle world, Holiday fic  
>  **Author's Notes:** To my lovely recipient, I tried to include as many of your likes in this as I could, and, well, I took your song prompts quite literally. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Thank you to my betas. Always. Lyrics included in the fic belong to Imagine Dragons and Avicii. Anything recognizable belongs to J. K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long  
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?  
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,  
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?  
-William Shakespeare (1609)

The Dark Lord is dead.

The Dark Lord is dead. Draco braced himself on the sink and repeated the words to his reflection. 

The thing about Tom Riddle, though, was that in spite of it all, objectively he _was_ the smartest wizard of his generation, and the reach of his terror didn't end when Potter killed him. There were the lives that could never be replaced, of course, and the physical damage to Hogwarts, the Ministry, and Gringotts. But the effects ran deeper. It was in the hearts and the minds and very magical signatures of wizards and witches on both sides. 

Even though Voldemort didn't win, it hadn't been a total defeat.

Here it was 12 years after the war had ended, and every single day of Draco's life he was reminded of every Cruciatus curse he had ever cast. It was the look of abject terror in the eyes of every Muggleborn the Dark Lord forced him to curse and the accompanying tortured cries that sometimes made him wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, even still. 

Draco splashed cold water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror. The dark circles weren't enough to require a glamour, but he didn't look nearly as cheery as he'd like, especially because he had to go to Muggle London. 

It would have to do. 

He slipped into his wool trench coat to fight back against the autumn chill, then he strapped his equipment bag across his back and limped toward the door. The brass handle of his favoured cane felt heavier in his hand than it did most days as he grabbed it on the way out of his flat. Luckily they were done doing repairs on the lift. He was only on the third floor, but steps took their toll.

Crisp air greeted Draco as he stepped outside. 

Mrs. Spinnet was raking leaves absently, waving her wand with her right hand. Her face was buried in a newspaper—one Draco didn't recognize—that she held with her left. 

“Good morning,” Draco called. 

She jerked her head up. “Good morning, Mr. Malfoy.” She never called him Draco, no matter how many times he insisted on it. Even though she had rented him a flat in her building, it was as if she wasn't willing to disassociate him from the taint that still lingered on the Malfoy name.

“Something happen I should know about?” Draco nodded toward the newspaper in her hand. 

“Myron Wagtail is getting married,” she said. A wistful smile bloomed on her face.

“Who?”

Her jaw dropped. “The lead singer of the Weird Sisters?”

“They're still around?” 

Draco didn't think Mrs. Spinnet could think any less of him, but the look on her face told him he was wrong. 

“Surely you've heard about their fight with their label?”

Draco shook his head. He only owned one Weird Sisters record. It came out about a year after the war, and he listened to it so much, he wore it out and had to buy another copy. It was exactly what he needed at the time—unlike their earlier music, it was mournful and nostalgic. When all else in his life seemed hopeless, it had made him feel less alone. However, he hadn't really followed their career beyond that. As far as he was concerned, nothing they could do would ever top “Phoenix Rising,” so there wasn't any sense in trying only to be disappointed.

“It was even on the front of the _Prophet_. They had a whole album almost finished but then their label threatened to drop them. It was this huge legal battle.” She paused, but Draco's blank stare seemed to encourage her to go on. “Anyway, they finally had to accept that there was no way out of their contract, so they're releasing a different album next month. It's supposed to be a new direction from their last few. They got a bit dark after the war.”

“Didn't we all,” Draco murmured.

Mrs. Spinnet froze. “I—”

Draco waved his hand. “Well, I must be off.” 

Hurrying away wasn't an option, but Draco tried to pick up his pace as best he could. He could still feel her eyes trained on him as he walked to the corner.

Today's appointment was a tuning in a church. There wasn't a safe place to Apparate nearby, so he made a short walk out of the wards that protected his wizarding neighbourhood and to the Muggle tube stop two streets away. His parents both knew what he did for a living, honourable work if not the most profitable, but if they knew he used Muggle transportation they probably would worry. 

He tried to blend in, but it was futile. It could have been the colour of his hair, the way he dressed—always in a three-piece suit for business calls—or his cane, but the combination of all three was an invitation for gawkers. Had it been ten, five, even two years prior, he would have used a disillusionment charm or an elaborate glamour. But at some point he realized he was hiding from himself more than from other people, and he put an end to the disguises. 

He endured the woman who was very clearly checking him out until she noticed his cane and her face fell. He endured the little girl tugging on her father's sleeve and asking, “Is that man's hair real?” He endured the mother who poked her son until he stood up and offered Draco his seat. 

“Thank you, but I'm fine,” Draco said with unfailing politeness.

“Are you sure?”

“My stop is next,” Draco replied, even though he wouldn't have taken the seat if he had to go all the way to the end of the line. 

The walk to the church was not long. The pipe organ housed there wasn't particularly old, but the instrument was quite ornate and Draco was looking forward to working on it. There weren't very many of them left, in the Muggle world especially, and they mostly only existed in churches and cathedrals. He kept a record of every one he knew to exist, along with details of their particular mechanisms and renovations. He had a goal, one he never told anyone else, to tune all the organs in England. He had worked hard to build his reputation as an organ tuner. The best tuners were always wizards, but few ventured into the Muggle world. He was able to build a reputation there instead of spending a decade as an apprentice with another wizard. Aside from the financial benefits, it allowed him to work on the instruments himself. 

Of course, Draco could no longer play. 

“Arthritis,” the Muggle doctor had called it, after the healers at St. Mungo's made it clear there was no magical cure. The Muggles couldn't determine the cause, of course. “Genetics,” the doctor had said. It didn't matter. Draco knew exactly why his joints ached and his left knee was in a near constant state of pain. It was the same reason his father walked with a stoop and could barely clutch his wand. In the end, the Dark Lord had really just gone mad. The preservation of wizarding families and traditions hadn't been his objective at all, especially as the war continued. It was merely a cover for his obsession with the prophecy that wouldn't allow him to truly live so long as Potter did. 

Dark magic had a price. Draco found out about the Horcruxes later, about how they had the power to corrupt and darken the thoughts of whoever possessed them. Casting dark spells had a similar effect, only with long-term effects. Unforgivables weren't just outlawed because of the harm they inflicted, they were unforgiving on the caster, too. Draco's haunted memories were a complement to his physical ailments, made worse by Voldemort himself. The Dark Lord would line up Muggle-borns, and make Draco go down the line, practising the Cruciatus curse. Whenever Draco hesitated, Voldemort would cast his own Crucio, striking the back of Draco's knee. 

Draco would always have a limp, would always ache before a rain storm, would always be trapped in a body that kept him from the things he loved: Quidditch, playing music, even sex. He wasn't inadequate in that department, per se, but even the Malfoy good looks and charm weren't enough for most men to see beyond the cane, his limited movement, and the bottles of Muggle pills that filled his medicine cupboard because magical cures were ineffective. 

The only promising relationship he ever had—with a Weasley no less—never quite got off the ground. It turned out they were better as friends, and they had managed to remain so in spite of Charlie being in Romania most of the year. So as his body degraded after the war, the effects settling in, he had resigned himself to pity shags. 

Draco's body may have been broken, but as he approached the church's office, his moment of self-pity was over. At least there was nothing wrong with his pitch. 

The church secretary let him in and then left him to his work. He had a half hour before the organist was coming in to play the notes while he tuned the corresponding pipes, so he took a little time getting to know the instrument. Each pipe organ was unique and had its own voice. All the things that went into it—the year it was built, the number of pipes, the ranks, even the temperature of the room—all influenced the sound. This particular organ was built in 1910, and had been restored to sound more like the music of that era. He looked at the trackers and the stop knobs. The stops were the heart of the organ; they gave it style, and allowed the organist to choose which ranks of pipes would sound. 

By the time he felt acquainted with the instrument, the organist had arrived. Like many organists, she was an older woman. She was no nonsense and seemed uninterested in making small talk, so he took out his tuning knife and got to work. Fine-tuning an organ was an arduous task, but his appointment today was more like a check up on the main ranks. Draco set out the four-foot octave first, asking the organist to play the note. He had perfect pitch and could tell it was slightly flat immediately. He didn't need a Muggle tuner, but he always brought one with him in case the organist questioned him.

He tuned the octaves and then the rest of the stops in turn, listening for the beats between the harmonics and then adjusting the pipes until the rank was in tune. Then he sounded another rank with the principal. He got lost in his work, enjoying the subtly it took to slow down the beats until they were gone and the frequencies of the notes were a perfect match. 

When he was finished, the organist thanked him profusely, impressed that he did such good work and at such a young age. When she played a hymn to test the instrument, he longed to be the one sitting at the console. But as he sat and listened to the perfect harmonics as the organist played, he was still thoroughly satisfied with his work. 

He felt light as he walked the few streets back to the Tube. The neighbourhood was unfamiliar—most of Muggle London was. Even though he was no longer afraid of public transport and shopping centres and tourists, Draco still preferred to stick to wizarding areas of the city. 

Of course, he had outgrown the prejudicial thoughts that had influenced him as a child. He found some delight in Muggle inventions and entertainment. Going to the cinema was a guilty pleasure he indulged in somewhat regularly, but he preferred wizarding London because he didn't like hiding who he was, hiding his wand, wearing suits instead of robes. He had finally reached a point where he could walk through Diagon Alley and not feel the hateful stares. Even though he had never been charged with war crimes, there was still a tarnish on the Malfoy name that made it hard to hold his head high. Though things were getting better. 

Draco even had an appointment to tune the Minister of Magic's family organ later in the month. 

In spite of the lingering feeling of joy from a job well done, his knee was throbbing and his other joints were feeling stiff. A long soak in a hot salt bath was calling his name. 

He almost considered getting a cab instead of taking the Underground, but as he approached the entrance, a messy head of brown hair came barrelling round the corner and took the stairs down to the Tube two at a time. Draco froze in his tracks.

What was Harry Potter doing in Muggle London on a Tuesday afternoon? 

Draco made a snap decision. He took the escalator, willing it to move faster. He spotted Harry on the platform, so he cast a Disillusionment charm on himself and weaved through the crowd towards him. Had Harry gone into Auror training, he would have been able to detect Draco's simple spell, but Harry made no indication that he sensed magic being cast behind him. Draco couldn't help but feel a pang of regret, not on his own behalf, but because the untapped potential Harry had to do something spectacular with his magic seemed like such a waste. Draco had no idea what Harry had been doing for the last ten years other than what he read in _The Quibbler_ or, Merlin forbid, _The Daily Prophet_ , or heard from their mutual acquaintances. 

In the last few years especially, Harry's public appearances seemed to only be related to philanthropy, mostly a bit of charity work here or there.

Draco wondered if Harry had paid off the media to leave him alone or if he really had been doing nothing else. Or maybe the newspapers were simply no longer interested in the man who saved their lives. In the first few years after the war, Harry's private life was a spectacle that all the papers made predictions about, even _The Quibbler_ weighing in on occasion. When Ginny Weasley married Viktor Krum, it was the biggest scandal to hit wizarding society since Charlie Weasley outed himself by having a rather public affair with Kingsley Shacklebolt's son. 

Of course, Harry and Ginny didn't rekindle their romance after the war, but the media desperately wanted them to. Any time they were in public together it seemed someone was able to snap a photo of them. Draco knew it drove Harry mad, and though he and Ginevra never stopped being friends, they avoided being in public in the same place at the same time. 

But Harry hadn't been in the papers at all lately. 

Harry got off the train at a stop Draco had never been to before, but Draco's curiosity was too great, and he had to follow. He knew he would pay for it later. Too much walking, especially in the chill air, made his joints ache like nothing else, but it had been so long since he had seen Harry, he couldn't let it go. 

So he followed in the direction Harry took, to the platform to make the transfer and then one stop more. Draco kept about ten paces behind Harry and boarded the opposite end of the train car. He didn't dare risk a Locator spell, instead just keeping an eye on the messy brown hair that now seemed to be congruent with Muggle style. 

Harry turned down a street into a largely residential area. Draco passed a graffiti-covered street sign for “Abbey Road,” the name ringing familiar in his mind though he couldn't place it. Harry finally stopped in front of a white building that looked utterly nondescript. He went up the front steps and knocked on the door. It took a minute before it swung open and a man poked his head out, squinting as if he hadn't seen the sun in ages. The man nodded in recognition at Harry, but made no move to let him in. Harry waited by the door with his arms crossed; his expression was so stony, it almost made Draco shiver. Harry Potter was the most powerful wizard of his generation, and sometimes that power was palpable. Draco understood Harry's lack of interest in being a leader or an Auror, but sometimes he thought the world would be better if Harry was affecting it the way he had in his youth.

After a few minutes, the man poked his head back out and handed an envelope to Harry. Harry shoved it into his coat without so much as a 'thank you' and hurried down the steps. 

Harry started going back in the direction of the Tube, so Draco followed. Harry turned again before reaching the station, so Draco made a deal with himself to only follow for ten minutes longer. His body was already protesting, but luck was on his side, as Harry's next destination was close. 

This time he stopped at what looked like a residence, walking in without knocking, and then firmly closing the door behind him. Draco stepped in close enough to read the sign on the building. 

“Ulf's House of Alternative Wellness and Spiritual Lifestyle Centre.” 

A charmed Eihwaz rune was painted on the door, something only those with a magical signature could see, indicating it was a Muggle establishment that also catered to wizards. Draco had no idea what “alternative wellness” or “spiritual lifestyle” were, but there were wind chimes hanging in the window and the smell of incense wafting out into the street, so he had a pretty good idea. Draco rolled his eyes.

He wondered what other bad Muggle magic clichés they used inside. His first time going into a “magic” shop in Muggle London had been eye opening. In addition to the excessive use of the colour black, they totally misrepresented wizarding culture at every turn, with fake magic wands, velvet draped everywhere, weird contraptions that supposedly caught dreams, and cards that allegedly could tell people's futures. The images on the cards didn't even move, and Draco was positive that having seven cups was not a profound accomplishment. Worst of all, their eye of newt wasn't even authentic.

Draco wanted to wait for Harry, but there was no telling how long he would be, so he listened to his body and returned home. 

When he was finally back at his flat, he could already feel the ache settling into his joints from all the walking. He started drawing water for a salt bath and as he waited for the claw-footed tub to fill with scented water, his mobile lit up with a number he didn't recognise. 

“Malfoy Music and Organ Tuning,” he answered, after stopping the taps with a wave of his wand.

“Draco?”

“Yes.” Draco knew the voice. He just hadn't expected it.

“It's Hermione.”

Draco's mouth was suddenly dry.

“You could have Flooed, Granger.”

“You don't have your coordinates on the ad.”

“So this is a business call?”

“Rose has her heart set on learning the organ. Ron and I took her to _The Phantom of the Opera_ , and it's been nothing but phantom-this and phantom-that ever since.”

“Far be it from me to tell you how to raise your children, but shouldn't you be concerned she identifies with an abductor?”

“It was the music she liked, Draco.” The exasperation in her voice was fond. 

“Bring her to the Manor on Saturday. I think Blaise has an opening.”

“Thank you. She'll be thrilled.”

Had it been twelve years prior, Draco would have commented that were she being raised in a proper wizarding home, she would have already started with organ lessons. Even the eldest Weasleys had been given lessons. But as the effects of the war settled in, so did everything Draco once believed in. He had to accept that change wasn't always for the worse. 

It was a hard lesson to internalize, but Draco had learned that above all else, adaptability meant survival. 

After that random sighting, Draco found himself disappointed he didn't see Harry again for the rest of the week when he was out making his appointments, but he did get a surprise fire-call from Charlie that provided him a pleasant distraction.

“Hullo, Draco.” 

“Charlie.”

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, you know. I'm as well as I can be, I suppose. How are you?”

“Oh, you know.” Charlie's smile was warm. 

Draco never had to pretend with Charlie the way he pretended with nearly everyone else. As close as he was with Blaise and Pansy, even they rarely saw Draco's guard come down. Habits from being raised in old wizarding families died hard, but Draco never had to posture with Charlie. 

Draco wondered sometimes if the dark magic he cast during the war had made his heart cold. He and Charlie had never been able to make a real go at a relationship even though they were physically compatible and maintained a friendship that initially baffled both of their families. 

“It's good to see you, Draco.” Charlie smiled through the flames. 

“Always a pleasure. Is there any particular reason you've graced my fire with your presence?”

“Just wanted to let you know I'm coming home next week. Can you carve out some time for me in your busy schedule?”

Draco scowled. “You've never been good at sarcasm.” 

Charlie laughed. “You haven't owled in ages, so I figured you must have a busy social calendar. Maybe a new boyfriend?”

“Hardly,” Draco scoffed. “I guess I've been getting stuck in my head a lot lately. I'm sorry. Though owls go both ways, you know.”

“I guess I've been a bit stuck in my head too.” 

“Will you be here long?” 

“Likely through hibernation.” 

“Why the long stay?”

Charlie closed his eyes and Draco watched the fire lick his eyelids. “Will and I broke up and everything in my flat reminds me of him.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Draco said and he meant it. In spite of their history, there was no ill will or jealousy between them. He wanted Charlie to be happy. “Can I ask what happened?”

“He got a job opportunity in Siberia that he couldn't pass up. I don't blame him, but he didn't think he could handle the distance. I don't know if I could have either.”

“But you still love him.”

“I do.”

Draco tried not to let the flicker of disappointment show. It wasn't that he wanted to be with Charlie, but it had been a long time since he last got off with someone. It would have been nice to have a quick shag or two while Charlie was home, but Draco couldn't take advantage that way. 

“Well, you never know what could happen,” Draco reasoned. 

“I suppose anything's possible,” Charlie said. “Anyway, George is looking forward to having me around. This time of year is always hard for him because it was Fred's favourite. Harry usually helps pull him out of it, but he's been out of sorts lately, too. So, it'll be good for all of us, I think.”

“So you're suppressing your own feelings to carry on the emotional burdens of your family.”

“And that's exactly why I need to see you. You won't let me off easy. Coffee next week?”

“Of course, Charlie. I'm looking forward to it.”

Charlie disappeared from the flames, and Draco settled back in his armchair. It was an unexpected but welcome surprise to see Charlie. All of Draco's other friends reminded him of the war at times, but the history he had with Blaise and Pansy and Hermione simply didn't exist with Charlie. 

“How funny life turned out,” he heard Severus murmur from his frame. “Your best friend in the world seems to be a Weasley.”

Not in the mood to be baited, Draco ignored him and went to bed. 

That Saturday, Draco awoke from another nightmare. He always had them the nights before he planned on being at the Manor. What was once Malfoy Manor was now a music conservatory. Though his childhood dream of being a performer had been shattered even before his body had suffered its permanent damage, his love of music was embedded too deep in his soul to give up on it entirely. It took a few years and a lot of going before the Ministry to get the right permits and permissions, but the Malfoy Musical Conservatory was now a thriving institution. 

Initially, Draco intended to rent a location, but he couldn't find anything that suited his needs as well as the Manor. None of the Malfoys, even Lucius, could bear to stay there after the war. Even still, Draco rarely spent much time there, doing the business end of running a conservatory from his flat. The tapestries, the furniture, everything had been replaced, remodelled for acoustics and soundproofing. But the corridors were the same. The stairwells were the same. The screams from the now-sealed-off dungeons, that echoed in his dreams and caused his fitful sleep, still lingered in the stone. 

He wasn't crazy. 

The thing about sound was that it was a matter of resonance, and the old stone of the Manor was particularly reflective. Sometimes when he worked in old churches, Draco heard Muggles speak of hearing ghosts. Often they were right, but other times, they were simply hearing the resonant behaviour of the stone. Any noise of the right frequency that was made in the Manor could resonate in its walls, and Draco would hear it just the same as he heard the screams of the people who were tortured there. Voldemort had taken so many things from Draco, his childhood home was just another drop in the bucket. 

Draco was early, but Hermione was already there, waiting with her daughter in tow when he entered the vestibule. Draco didn't care much for children, but Rose was one of the few he encountered who never pointed or stared at his cane. 

Hermione gave Draco a hug, a gesture that surprised him every time. Rose settled for a polite handshake. Draco took them through the main hallway, stopping to show them the practice rooms and the storage room packed with musical instruments Rose had never heard of. Draco prided himself on the conservatory's balance of both Muggle and traditional wizarding instruments. He owned some of the oldest balisets known to the wizarding world. 

He took them up to the second floor of the Manor, which housed students from all over the continent. The larger quarters were devoted to musicians in residence. There were few people up and about so early on a Saturday, and Draco didn't want to disturbed anyone, so they went through quickly and took the back stairs to the kitchens where the house elves were scurrying about preparing meals for the day. 

Draco led Hermione and Rose back to the organ, where Blaise awaited their arrival.

While Blaise gave Rose her lesson, Draco offered to keep Hermione company. He didn't really need to come to the lesson at all, but he always felt obligated when it was a new student. Plus, he was tired of speaking with Hermione by mobile. It was a great convenience, especially for his business, but Draco still preferred face-to-face interaction. He led Hermione out to the heated veranda at the back of the house. The gardens were still exquisite—proof that life was able to flourish out of ash and darkness. The Malfoy peacocks still strolled among the hedges, knowing the pattern of the low maze.

“Tea?” Draco asked.

“Please,” she answered.

Draco called for Libby, who tripped over her feet and then tried to slam her hand in the veranda door in penance. Draco patiently told her to stop, and she did after a brief argument. The house elves had gotten better over time, but the urge to punish themselves was so ingrained, freedom and wages couldn't change that. 

“I saw Harry this week,” Draco blurted out as soon as Libby left. 

If Hermione was surprised, she didn't show it. “He didn't say.”

“He didn't see me, I don't think. If he did, he didn't acknowledge it.”

Draco didn't mention that he had gone out of his way to follow Harry or that he had ended up at a bizarre, wizard-friendly Muggle establishment that included the words 'spiritual' and 'wellness'.

“You could have at least said 'hello' to him,” Hermione scolded.

It hadn't even occurred to Draco to talk to Harry or make himself seen. Harry still had a power over Draco that always made him feel uneven and breathless. The only way he managed to survive public functions was if he knew in advance Harry would be there and he could prepare himself beforehand. Draco could don a mask of disaffected calm when it was required of him, and encounters with Harry Potter ignited his self-preservation instinct like nothing else. 

“My knee was acting up so I was in a bit of a rush to get off it, and Harry seemed to be in a hurry wherever he was going too.”

“I see,” Hermione replied, knowing full well that Draco was making excuses. 

“How is he?” Draco asked, failing to sound as nonchalant as he intended.

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but then she stopped and let out a sigh instead. “I'm worried about him. He just sold his stake in the Cannons.”

Draco snorted. “And that's bad? The Cannons are dreadful this year.”

“That's not the point. He used to be interested in Quidditch. He says he doesn't need the money, but as far as I can tell, he doesn't _do_ anything. He volunteers at St. Mungo's far less than he used to. He used to spend a lot of time in the city, the Muggle parts especially, but the last few months he's barely left his flat. He insists he's fine and begs me not to pry, but he told me he was back in therapy and I feel so helpless. Where did you say you saw him?”

“I didn't. Near St. John's Wood.” Draco said, trying to stay vague. He had a nagging feeling that if Hermione didn't know where he was, Harry probably wanted it that way. 

“Oh yes, that's where his therapist is. Was this Tuesday?”

Draco almost told her about the “wellness centre,” but if Harry's story was that he was in therapy, Draco wasn't going to be the one to blow it. Hermione didn't seem like the type to trust a place that specialized in “wellness” any more than Draco was. 

“Yes, Tuesday afternoon.”

She nodded. Harry must have been doing poorly if she was keeping track of his calendar so closely. Hermione confirmed Draco's suspicion.

“He had been doing well. He had a bad spell after the ten year anniversary. Him speaking at that memorial service was a horrible idea. I still haven't fully forgiven McGonagall for persuading him to do it. I thought he was starting to function better and act more like himself, but now he's so distant. It's like his mind is million miles away. I'm just, well, I'm worried.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“You wouldn't have asked if you didn't care.”

He sometimes forgot how observant Hermione was. It wasn't just meddling; she simply noticed things other people didn't and processed them quicker. Underestimating her was always his problem as a student, and it continued to be a problem, even though now she had Draco's best interests at heart. The tentative friendship they had formed as adults meant that Hermoine fussed over him the way she fussed over Harry. It wasn't that bad, really, to have someone care about his well-being, but he would never admit that to her or how fond he had grown of her over the years. 

She probably already knew anyway. 

“Granger, I—”

“I know, Draco.”

He wasn't sure what she meant, because he hadn't really planned to say anything. But knowing that Harry could be in trouble made a lump start to form in his throat. There were only three things in this world that had much effect on Draco—music, his aching body, and Harry Potter. 

He didn't know what Hermione meant when she said Harry had been “starting to function better.” He wondered if 'better' meant having a facsimile of life the way most people did—a job and a family—or if it meant not waking up screaming and shaking in the middle of the night from dark memories. As well-meaning as Hermione was, Draco sometimes wondered if she really knew how much the war took from Harry, how much it hurt to cast Unforgivables, how much the Dark Lord still remained in the world via all the pain he caused. 

Dark magic had consequences. Just never the ones they taught in Defence Against the Dark Arts. 

After Rose's lesson, Draco spent the rest of his afternoon listening to Blaise play the organ with one of his more advanced students. After their official lesson, Blaise and his student started playing some old Weird Sisters hits. Draco knew a few of the songs from “Phoenix Rising.” Of course, Blaise knew of Draco's obsession with the album, and he cajoled Draco into singing along. 

_Don’t get too close_  
It’s dark inside  
It’s where my demons hide 

It sounded haunting on the organ in a way that The Weird Sisters could never manage with bagpipes, a cello, a lute and guitars. 

After the student left, Draco had to admit to Blaise that it had been fun. In their early years in Hogwarts, before everything went pear-shaped, they used to play their guitars in the Slytherin dormitory, writing songs together—some of which Draco still kept tucked away in a box of keepsakes. They'd both been horrible at writing lyrics, though, usually devolving into dirty rhymes. 

He went back to his flat alone as usual, waving off Blaise's invitation to dine with him and Pansy. 

“Pansy'll be crushed.”

“Tell her my knee's been acting up.”

“Has it?”

“A little. Not a lot more than usual.”

“Then come to dinner.”

“Is Pansy cooking?”

Blaise sighed in defeat. “Fine. Make me suffer alone.” 

Though he truly didn't want to politely choke down Pansy's cooking, he didn't tell Blaise that what he really wanted to do was go home and think about Harry. His conversation with Hermione had only stoked his interest more.

Draco had spoken to Harry directly only a handful of times in the last ten years or so. There were polite pleasantries at events, but the man who showed up at those philanthropic endeavours and war commemorations was Harry Potter, _the_ Harry Potter. He wasn't the Harry whom Draco spent six months after the war shagging senseless in Grimmauld Place. 

He plopped down in his armchair and poured himself a snifter of brandy. The memories were still vivid in his mind, as if he was looking through a Pensieve, but he never dared take out the memories. There was no place safe enough to store the way Harry looked spread out on a bed, sweaty, too sated to feel self-conscious about his nudity. Or the way he would throw his head back while he rode Draco with abandon. Or the way he would smile around Draco's cock when he found the spot that made Draco gasp and tug Harry's hair. It was in those moments that Draco knew he was getting a Harry no one else had ever gotten. A Harry even his best friends didn't know. 

“You're a cliché.” The drawl of Snape's voice snapped him out of his daydream.

Draco looked up to see Snape glowering at him from his portrait. 

“Which cliché might that be, Severus?”

“The lonely rich boy. Enjoying his fine brandy and lamenting he has no one to enjoy it with.”

“I wasn't lamenting. I was merely giving into some nostalgia.”

“About Potter.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. Portraits weren't supposed to be able to do Legilimency, but if anyone could manage it, it would be Severus. 

“That's hardly your concern.”

“I don't actually relish in your misery, Draco.”

Draco sighed. Severus had always been good to Draco. After the war and the whole story of Snape's heroism had come out, Draco sat down and had a long talk with Snape's portrait. After that, he trusted Snape with a lot of his personal demons. Snape understood better than anyone what Draco had gone through. It was almost like therapy in a way. If only Snape wasn't always so smug. 

“I might admittedly be a little curious about him.”

“Well, do you want him in your life?” 

“I don't know. It's been years.” 

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. “But?”

“But Granger's worried about him, Charlie noticed him acting off all the way from Romania, and he just looked so dejected when I saw him this week. He's going to fake Muggle witches who pretend they have the knowledge to heal with herbs and “wellness.” There's something wrong.”

“And I don't suppose you'll be able to let this go?”

“I'm not going to justify that with a response.” Draco sniffed.

He could practically hear Snape's eye roll. 

“Don't get caught up in his life at the neglect of your own. And don't give him the power to hurt you again. With the amount of attachment you still have for Potter, I fear you'll get in over your head.”

Though he was right to a point, Draco wasn't the 18-year-old, traumatised boy he had been after the war. His life was so monotonous, seeing Harry on the street had been the most intriguing thing to happen to him in years. 

“Are you quite finished?”

“One more thing. Go see your mother. In spite of what you and Narcissa might presume, I'm not an owl.”

He ignored Snape's warning, but he did go see his mother for tea on Sunday afternoon.

It was as stilted as conversations with his mother always were. The only safe conversation topic was his work. His mother loved the organ. She was one of the few people who understood the complexities and intricacies of the instrument, but she had a hard time accepting, as Draco had, that he could no longer play. 

It was only one of the reasons why he rarely visited. 

They all broke in their own ways after the war. His father's physical ailments were far worse than his. Lucius refused to take Muggle drugs that had given Draco so much relief, so Narcissa started having the house elves sneak them into Lucius' food. But the physical deterioration wasn't the worst of it. His father was already showing signs of madness. He spoke to voices that weren't there sometimes and he would miscast simple spells. Though Draco knew realistically he hadn't cast even a fraction of the dark spells Lucius had in his lifetime, he still feared it would be his future. 

His mother seemed to live in a permanent state of denial. 

In some ways it made it hard to visit her, because so many things went unsaid between them. On the other hand, frivolous conversations were easy. After they had made small talk and exhausted all of the updates Draco could give her about his work and how things were at the conservatory, his mother managed to catch him off guard.

“Harry Potter's been in the paper again,” she said as she poured Draco a third cup of Lady Grey.

“Oh?” Draco said, aiming for casual disinterest. “What has he been chosen for now?”

Narcissa gave Draco a scolding glance for his joke. “He sold his stake in his Quidditch team. No business sense, that boy. Maybe you could recommend your financial planner to him.” 

“Mother, Potter and I aren't exactly friends.”

Narcissa took a sip of her tea and raised her eyebrow. “You're near enough to his inner circle. I'd think the advice would be welcome.”

Draco didn't try to correct her. He casually changed the subject to Pansy's pregnancy, and spent the next half hour letting his mother's chatter about raising infants and how fussy he had been as one. 

The same as it ever was, Draco just couldn't get Harry Potter out of his head. 

Even what his mother had casually mentioned turned around in his thoughts that evening and the next day, so Draco made up his mind to go seek Harry out. Even if Harry didn't want to see him. Even if he could pretend like they were never lovers when they ran into each other at public events, Draco was drawn to him in spite of himself, and if there was something wrong with Harry, he was going to find out. 

It was a long shot, but Harry was such a dreadful liar, there had to be some truth in the story he gave Hermione about seeing a therapist. Draco parked himself on bench in a park across from the wellness centre with an inconspicuous copy of _The Guardian_. He didn't actually know anything about Muggle politics, but he knew it was the paper Granger favoured. An hour ticked by while he read about Labour and committees and royal banks and other news items he only had a mere grasp on. 

Finally, the door to the centre swung open, and Harry appeared. As he finished his goodbye to whomever was on the other side of the door, Draco hurried to get into position. He crossed the street while Harry waited at the intersection to head toward the Tube. The street was deserted but for the two of them, so Harry noticed Draco approach, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Hello, Harry.”

“What are you doing here?” Harry ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tic he hadn't outgrown. 

“It's nice to see you, too. A little achy with the weather changing, but I do all right. Thanks for asking.”

“Sorry, I-”

“I've never expected exceptionally good graces from you.”

“Well, it was nice running into you and having you insult me, but I really should get going.”

It wasn't going at all how Draco wanted. Harry always had a way of throwing him off his game.

“I was doing work in this neighbourhood last week and I saw a Thai place I wanted to try. You wouldn't have time for a quick bite with me? Unless you don't like pad Thai any longer.” 

“Oh, well, I--”

Draco knew Harry didn't have anywhere to be. He also knew that even still, decades later, Harry ate as if each meal would be the last he'd have for awhile. 

“Just say yes. I do hate going to Muggle restaurants alone. It took me five years before I could get my order at Starbucks right.”

Harry didn't explicitly agree, but he fell into step beside Draco as they walked.

“If you wouldn't order such a snooty drink, it would be a lot easier.”

“You have no idea what I order at Starbucks. And I'll have you know, a tall, non-fat, no-whip, no-foam mocha is not snooty.”

Draco ignored the scoff he heard Harry make. 

“Ah, here we are,” Draco said as they drew close. The exotic smells from the little restaurant were wafting out into the street. 

A woman led them to the small table in the front window. The food and the view of the street gave them enough to talk about as they progressed through the meal. It was far more companionable than Draco had expected. He was comfortably full of pad Thai and sipping the last of his green tea before Harry finally gave a resigned sigh.

“Well, are you going to ask?”

“Ask what?” Draco wasn't entirely sure what Harry was getting at.

“What I was doing at a New Age centre in Muggle London.”

“That's none of my business.” Draco said immediately, making a note to figure out what “New Age” meant. He was still under the impression it meant, “fake witchcraft,” and didn't feel confident he would be dissuaded of that assumption. 

Harry clearly hadn't seen that answer coming, but before he could reply, Draco took command of the conversation. 

“Have you ever been to Royal Albert Hall?”

“I-what? No, I haven't.” 

“Their organ has 9,997 speaking pipes. It's the second largest in the country.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

“It is.”

“Why do they need so many pipes?”

“That's the interesting thing about organs. Guitars have six strings or sometimes twelve. Balisets have nine. Pianos have 88 keys, but the number of pipes of an organ is highly variable. The variety and combinations of sounds and timbres that can come out of an instrument that big are infinite. Or close enough.” 

“Is that why you like organs so much, then?”

Draco was pleased with the question. “One of the reasons, yes. When I look at an organ, all I see are possibilities. It's unlike any other instrument in the potential it has to make music.” Draco leaned forward, and lowered his voice to the tone of a confession. “But what I like best is that every organ is absolutely singular. No two are ever alike.”

Harry looked thoughtful. “So you tune them?” 

“Yes,” Draco jutted his chin out, as if daring Harry to make some retort about the profession.

“Does it make it harder, then, if they aren't all alike?”

“It keeps my work interesting. When you have repeat customers, you start to learn their quirks.”

“You did always have a good ear. I still have the Black family piano. I'm sure it's woefully out of tune.”

Draco wasn't sure what to make of Harry's statement. It almost sounded as if there was a latent invitation in there, perhaps to look at the piano, but Harry didn't extend an offer. It was also possible he was asking Draco if he wanted the piano, given his own hereditary claim on Black property, but Draco had no need for an upright, even if it had been in his mother's family. 

Before he could come up with a response, Harry spoke again.

“Do you have any holiday plans?” 

So, safe topics it was. 

“Yule with mother and father as always.”

“Will you be at the Ministry ball?”

“And miss Elphias Doge get drunk off eggnog and try to snog Dumbledore's portrait? Wouldn't miss it. I assume you'll be in attendance?”

Harry sighed. “And have Romilda Vane chase me around with mistletoe, and George stare sadly into Firewhisky waiting for the strategically placed Wizard crackers to explode unprompted near unsuspecting guests.”

“You have to admit it was pretty funny the time he got Granger and she gave him donkey ears and a tail in retaliation.”

The corner of Harry's lips quirked up.

“Say, why do you still call her 'Granger'?”

Draco gave Harry a small smile. “So I never forget the girl who broke my nose when I was still foolishly looking down it.” 

Harry seemed surprised by that response, too, and it pleased Draco he could still keep Harry on his toes. He took the opportunity to make sure he didn't overstay his welcome into what felt like a rare social outing for Harry. 

“Well, I won't take any more time out of your busy schedule, Harry. Perhaps we can do this again soon.”

With that he threw a few notes on the table and left without letting Harry provide him an excuse not to meet with him again. 

Hermione rang him not two hours later.

“You still could have Flooed, Granger.”

“I'm picking up Hugo from school.”

Draco could hear the din of children in the background. 

“Harry told me you were stalking him in Muggle London.”

“I was not stalking him. You mentioned he had a regular weekly appointment, and I happened to be in the area. We just had a late lunch.”

Draco was glad he couldn't see Hermione's face. 

“So, how did it go?” she pressed.

“Well, it was nice to see him again. I think he didn't quite know what to say to me.”

“He's like that a lot lately, but whatever the two of you talked about, I think it's making a difference.”

“And you know this after one meal?”

“He seemed lighter. His eyes seemed clearer.”

“Maybe it's the therapy.” Draco offered, keeping Harry's ruse. Harry had done something in the building for an hour. Perhaps inhaling incense was cleansing his broken spirit.

“I don't think so. He never really took to it before. I was surprised he decided to go back, but he said Luna recommended this place he's going now.”

Lovegood. That explained the wind chimes, and probably the “wellness.” It sounded just as legitimate as nargles, and Draco couldn't imagine what Harry was getting out of it. Harry had always defended Lovegood, though. For a time, Draco thought they might have been seeing each other, but then Harry had pushed Draco up against the Black family tapestry and shoved his hand in Draco's robes and down his pants. That had cleared up a lot of Draco's questions. 

“So you plan on seeing him again?” Hermione's question snapped Draco out of his memory.

“I'm not courting him, Granger.”

“You reached out to him, Draco, and he seemed receptive to it. I know there's a lot of history between you, but he connects with you.” She paused. “And I think you connect with him.” 

Granger had unfortunately been the one to find Draco in Grimmauld Place, drunk off Firewhisky, casting Smashing spells at Walburga Black's china doll figurine collection. She knew that he and Harry had been shagging, but the whole story came tumbling out of him before he could stop it, the complexity of his feelings for Harry, the most passionate kiss Draco had ever experienced, followed by Harry immediately trying to block Draco from his life. But from that moment, Draco and Hermione's friendship began. She almost never brought up Harry, instead firmly inserting herself into his life, meddling with his business and setting him up on dates. She was actually the one to suggest he ask Charlie out. 

“Well, if you're worried about him, and Charlie is worried about him, and he's seeing some kind of Muggle head therapist maybe I'm curious.”

“Curious? That's all?”

“I can't let myself feel anything more than curiosity,” Draco replied quietly. 

“It's been a long time, Draco.”

“Exactly, Granger. It's been a long time.”

Draco ended the call and sank back into his armchair, going over his lunch conversation with Harry. He hadn't seemed that bad, not worthy of Granger's worry. But Granger tended not to exaggerate, so maybe he had caught Harry on a good day. 

“So you're courting Potter now?” Snape's voice startled Draco. 

“Stop doing that!”

“Your mother insisted on you having one of my portrait frames. I can tell her that you don't appreciate your godfather's presence.”

“This is fun for you, isn't it?”

“I exist in two dimensions. I have to make my own fun.”

Whatever Severus said, Draco wasn't courting Harry. Though he did start plotting ways to see Harry again.

He couldn't keep stalking the “wellness” centre. Harry was already onto him, and he couldn't very well get away with hanging around outside once a week. Eventually he'd be noticed. Going inside also wasn't an appealing option. He had looked into the “New Age” Harry had mentioned, and it seemed far too much like Muggles trying to meddle with magical concepts they didn't understand. He couldn't blame them as he may have once done. He couldn't imagine not growing up with the feeling of magic pulsing in your very essence. It must have made them feel lost. 

As it happened, the next time he saw Harry wasn't his doing at all. He'd had an appointment at a church in central London. The organ was small and the problem was only with the upper register, so the appointment didn't take as long as he planned. His knee was doing as well as it ever did, so he decided to enjoy the unseasonably warm day and went on a short stroll through Muggle London to Harrod's. 

As much as he loved Diagon Alley, some things could only be purchased in Muggle London, like the delicious French macarons even the Malfoy house elves couldn't seem to replicate. 

It was a seemingly random encounter, unless Harry had somehow gotten hold of Draco's appointment schedule, which couldn't be the case. As Draco turned a corner on his way to the nearest Apparition point, he spotted Harry lurking outside of a radio station. It was the combined home of the BBC and the Wizarding Wireless Network, not that the Muggles knew that. The WWN had relocated from Hogsmeade after the war. It was one of the concessions they made with the Muggle government after all the destruction that the war had brought to the country. 

Harry was pacing, checking his watch, and looking at the door. He was definitely waiting for someone.

However, as soon as Harry noticed Draco, he waved his hand tentatively. Draco froze for a moment, wondering if Harry's greeting was actually meant for him, but when no one else appeared, he crossed the street. 

“Fancy running into you here, Harry. Are you going to be on the radio now?”

Harry laughed. “I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing in this part of the city?”

Draco held the purple box up by the ribbon delicately tied around it.

“The macarons,” Harry said.

He remembered. Draco had lamented about them more than once while holed up in Grimmauld Place. His mother used to get them every Christmas. When Draco found out from Andromeda that they were not, in fact, a confection made by the house elves and that they came from a French bakery with locations in London, he indulged a few times a year. Although he still played along with Narcissa's ruse and pretended to be thrilled for them every Christmas.

“I was in the area on a job and I couldn't resist.” Draco wanted to talk to Harry. He wanted to ask him about his day, about what he was doing. He even wanted to know how whatever he did at the wellness centre was going. But in spite of his own desire to get caught in Harry's web, he was still holding onto his sense of self-preservation. Over a decade later, and Harry's rejection still sat in the back of his mind—if he wasn't enough then, would he ever be enough? 

Those thoughts weighed on Draco, and before his brain caught up to his mouth, he found himself saying, “Well, I don't mean to keep you.”

“You aren't,” Harry said quickly. “I was just hoping to run into someone, but it was a long shot.”

That tiny opening was what Draco needed. “So where are you off to now?” 

“Well, nowhere really.” Harry scratched the back of his neck and shifted his weight. 

“Tea?” Draco offered.

“Sure. Dean's place is nearby.”

Dean Thomas had opened a café in London. It was a Muggle establishment, but the treacle tart was most certainly made from magic. The café didn't look much different from any other café in London, but it was buzzing with patrons. At the counter, Harry ordered a pot of oolong, and Draco ordered a mocha.

Harry was staring at him.

“What? I've had thirty years of afternoon tea.”

The corner of Harry's lips tugged up. “I didn't say anything.”

“You were thinking loudly,” Draco huffed.

“Well, if you hadn't interrupted my thoughts, you would have heard me conclude that I like it that you drink chocolatey coffee in the middle of the afternoon.”

Draco could feel the tell-tale heat of a blush on his cheeks. 

Their order came up, saving Draco from having to make a response. Harry took both their drinks without a word. Normally Draco didn't like people helping him, but Harry didn't give a pitying look at his cane. He just stood holding his teapot in one hand and Draco's mocha in the other, waiting for Draco to find them a seat.

Draco chose an out-of-the-way table. He leaned his cane in the corner and then sat down as Harry poured his tea. 

“So what have you been doing, Harry? Other than having your New Age appointments.”

“You haven't told Hermione, have you?”

“It seemed you wanted it kept secret.”

“They do therapy there, of a sort, meditation and weird things with crystals, but that's not why I go.”

He fidgeted. After the war, Harry was always jittery, like he was still waiting to see Voldemort pop around the corner at any moment.

“You don't have to tell me. When I said it was none of my business, I meant it.” 

“I'm trying to get in touch with my third eye,” Harry blurted out.

Draco tried to keep his face smooth, but it was a struggle not to laugh. He hid his expression behind a sip of mocha.

“I see,” he murmured.

“I don't tell anyone, especially not 'Mione. She thinks divination is stupid. You remember how much she hated Trelawney in school. As if she didn't see the roomful of prophesies at the Ministry.”

Draco had only heard bits and pieces of what had happened that night in the Department of Mysteries. 

“There's a group of seers that meet there once a week.”

“So you go for readings?” Draco asked the question carefully. 

“Not specifically, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes I think they just want to make a prediction about the 'chosen one', but sometimes there's more to them.”

Draco knew there was more to it than what Harry was telling him and that it was more important to him than he was letting on. Harry was terrible at keeping secrets, and Draco could see the struggle play out on his face. Nevertheless, Draco didn't know how to ask anything further without offending Harry in the process. He was never a big believer in divination. 

“So are you learning how to do readings?” Draco guessed.

Harry shook his head. “I don't have the sight, but Luna does. I know what you're probably thinking, and I know I can't convince you, but she really does. She's working on her own foretellings, and I help her with it after the group meeting every week.”

Draco sidestepped his doubt. “So that _is_ Lovegood's place?”

“The best way to stay in business was to also cater to Muggles. She married a Muggle, you know.”

“I didn't know.” Draco took another sip of his mocha. “She was your friend. I don't think she ever warmed up to me.” 

Harry looked down at the table. “That might be my fault. I stayed with her after you and I, er, stopped going to Grimmauld Place. I might have told her some things.”

Draco's couldn't keep a hold on the hurt that had reopened when he started talking to Harry again. “You mean after you disappeared and warded the Floo without telling me?”

“You broke through the wards.” 

“That isn't the point!” 

“It wasn't-I wasn't—” Harry ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up hopelessly. “You _kissed_ me.”

“I'd been shagging you for nearly half a year, Potter. I thought that entitled a kiss.”

“Look, it was a long time ago. Let's just say, I wasn't ready for it. It wasn't a mistake, and I don't regret it, but it doesn't mean anything, especially now.”

“Why not now?”

“You've grown up, Draco. You have a life now, a business. You're not the scared, fragile teenager who just fought in a war and was seeking comfort. And I'm not either.”

Draco tried to stay calm, to tamp down all the rejection prickling under his skin. He managed to keep the coolness in his voice when he asked, “Was that all it was?”

“I don't want to talk about this, Malfoy. Any of this. Not, not right now.”

Draco nodded. It wasn't the answer he wanted, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't protest. And he didn't particularly want to relive the crushing feeling of Harry's absence in a Muggle café, so he drank the last sip of his mocha, stood up, and grabbed his cane. 

Harry was sitting very still, his hands clenched in fists on the table.

“Then if you don't mind, I think I'll be the one to leave this time,” Draco said above his racing heart.

Harry didn't respond, so with his last bit of dignity, Draco left the café. 

He Apparated as soon as he could. Instead of going home, he found himself outside the Burrow. He had only been there a few times before. Though over the years, as all the history between them became a bridge instead of a wall, Charlie, Hermione, Molly, and even Ron always insisted he was welcome any time, Draco never took them up on the offer. 

But he was there now, and it was too late to turn back. 

Molly didn't look surprised to see him when she opened the door before he could even knock.

“Is Charlie in?” Draco suddenly felt like a child. 

“Yes,” Mrs. Weasley opened the door wider, ushering him in. “Do come in, Draco. It's been far too long since I've seen you. You're looking well. I hear your business is going well. Mrs. Cresswell was raving about the way you restored their organ.”

“Ma, quit smothering him,” Charlie's voice came from the doorway. “Hullo, Malfoy.”

“Weasley,” Draco sneered.

Charlie grinned at their running joke. Then he came forward and put an arm around Draco's shoulders, ushering him outside and away from Molly's chatter. 

When they were safely out of earshot, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you want to talk about Will?” Draco snapped, immediately regretting it. “I'm sorry, I--”

Charlie put an arm around Draco's shoulder.

“How 'bout we go blow up some pumpkins?”

“Perfect.”

“Mind if I bring George? He was, well, I think he could stand to blow off a little steam too.”

Draco shook his head. 

“Say, Georgie!” Charlie called up at one of the Burrow's numerous windows. “Let's go blow stuff up!”

With a 'pop' George was beside them rubbing his hands together. “You've said the magic words, Charles.”

Charlie immediately pounced on George, pulling him into a headlock and a few moments later, they were wrestling on the ground. Watching them roughhouse felt so normal, familial, Draco could feel some of the tightness in his chest loosen. 

They went down to the Fawcett's overgrown pumpkin patch. Taking turns, one of them tossed a pumpkin up into the air, and then the other two cast an Expulso curse at it. By the time they'd gone through an entire row of the pumpkin patch, they were covered in seeds and pumpkins guts and Draco's sides ached from laughing. 

When he got home later that evening, Draco was ready to put aside their history and the feelings that seeing Harry stirred up in him, and think about what Harry had told him he was doing now. Draco didn't know what it meant to help with foretellings. He dropped Divination from his curriculum as soon as he could at Hogwarts, so it was just another layer to uncover of the mystery that was Harry Potter.

Nothing in his library was particularly helpful in explaining how foretellings differed from the trance-like telling of prophecies Draco was more familiar with, so he finally gave up and went to bed early, falling into a fitful sleep. 

He didn't hear from Harry after their failed tea, but life went on. He tried not to let it bother him. He tried to forget about the chance encounters that brought Harry briefly back into his life, but the pull to be in Harry's orbit was too great. 

Work occupied a lot of his time. With the Yule season coming, churches wanted their organs ready for Christmas mass. There would be a lull after the holidays and the work would pick up again before the Easter season. For years, Draco had pondered taking a holiday during February, but he always let himself get caught up in Conservatory business. 

The truth was, he didn't want to go on holiday alone. 

He enjoyed his own company perfectly fine, but when you went on holiday alone, everyone knew—the Portkey people, the people at the hotel, at restaurants, in shops. And it was just one more opportunity for Draco to get pitying looks.

So he worked, and put up with Blaise nagging him about taking time off.

Until that post-holiday gap, Draco had plenty of work. He had the pleasure of tuning one of the oldest organs in London. Built before the development of equal temperament, it used meantone temperament popularized in the Renaissance. For Draco, that meant tuning by perfect fifths, and he was looking forward to giving his ear the challenge. 

He met Charlie briefly for coffee that morning, and wanting to share his excitement about the instrument, on a whim he asked Charlie if he wanted to come along to the appointment.

“I'd love to,” Charlie agreed. 

The organist had no problem with Charlie's presence, so Draco showed Charlie the parts of the organ, pointing out where the bellows and manuals were at the foot of the pipes. Of course, Charlie had played the organ as a child, but he had never gotten beyond the basics before he had to stop taking lessons. 

When Draco started the tuning process, he brought Charlie back with him, playing the role of the dutiful helper, carrying Draco's tools. Draco explained how you had to be careful not to touch the pipes because even the natural warmth of the body would affect the sound. He showed Charlie how to shift the slides up and down, shortening and lengthening their speaking length until the frequencies were aligned. 

He had seen Charlie tame dragons, but Charlie had never seen Draco at work. Even though Draco suspected Charlie was mostly humouring him, it was still nice to share it with someone. Blaise was just as passionate about the organ as Draco, but he had no interest in tuning. 'Just make it sound better,' he would whine to Draco, after Draco tried to explain that tuning the reed pipes was a more difficult process than tuning flue pipes. 

After Draco finished the first rank, the organist asked for a break. Draco and Charlie went outside so Charlie could have a cigarette, a habit he picked up in Romania that he studiously hid from everyone in his family. 

“You know, organs are kind of like dragons in a way,” Draco said. 

“Big and noisy?” Charlie asked.

Draco shot Charlie a glare. “I meant in the sense that each one is unique with its own nuances, temperamental, and it takes an expert to coax out its full potential. Something about which you clearly don't know.”

“Well, I think you just described people, Draco.”

Draco dropped his attitude and softened his voice. “I was never all that good with people.”

“Me neither,” Charlie agreed. He didn't need to explain any further. Draco knew why Charlie had run off to Romania. At first he thought it was simply to escape his over-bearing family, but Charlie had a lot of reasons for leaving. It wasn't easy to be gay in the wizarding world, not when family lines were the source of so much of the social and political structure. Draco had kept his own sexuality a secret at Hogwarts, mostly because he thought it would bring attention of the sort he didn't want, but it had been even worse when Charlie was in school. 

Charlie still carried a lot of guilt about not being around for much of the war. Fred's death weighed heavier on him than he would ever admit, but Draco could see it in the way Charlie was with George—over-protective and indulgent the way a parent might be. Though Draco's guilt was for far different grievances, it was another thing they had been able to bond over.

Eventually Charlie grew restless with the tuning. He took out a Muggle music-listening device, put the headphones in his ears, and stretched out on a pew. By the time Draco and the organist had finished, Charlie was asleep. 

Draco hovered over his prone form and said loudly, “I hope you don't always do this on the job.” 

Charlie startled awake and sat up blinking.

“Done already?”

“You've been out for nearly three hours.”

“Oh, wow. I'm a shoddy assistant, aren't I?”

“You looked like you could use the sleep.”

“Yeah,” Charlie scrubbed a hand over his face. “Haven't been sleeping well since I got home.”

“I understand,” Draco said quietly.

“So how does the old girl sound?” Charlie asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

Draco couldn't help but smile. “As good as she did in 1745. If I do say so myself.”

“You really love this don't you?”

“I do,” Draco admitted. “It might not be the life I envisioned for myself, but it's my primary source of joy.” 

“So maybe they are like dragons, then,” Charlie replied. 

Draco ached from the long hours of standing, so he excused himself from a dinner invitation at the Burrow, promising he wasn't just making excuses. With his busy schedule in the coming weeks, he had to take care of himself. Being prone to nightmares and sleepless nights, he did everything he could to stay on a regular pattern of meals, arthritis drugs, and sleep. 

It was in the wee hours of the morning a few days later when the unmistakable sound of Apparition startled Draco out of his slumber. He rolled over with a groan only to find himself staring right into the worried eyes of Libby. 

She was trembling. “An intruder, Master Draco sir. You told Libby to tell you if anything out of the ordinary happened.”

“You did the right thing, Libby. Would you mind bringing me my cane?” Draco spoke calmly so as not to upset the jumpy house elf, but his heart was pounding. The Manor had once been a frequent target of vandals, but it had been years since the last attempt, and security at the Manor was top notch. 

The house elf scampered over to the rack where Draco had left his cane and brought it to the bedside where Draco had swung his legs over. He used the cane to come to a standing position, then steadied himself, threw a robe on over his pyjamas, and went out to the fireplace in the parlour.

“Malfoy Manor,” Draco said firmly after tossing the powder into the fire. He had never changed the Floo coordinates. 

Libby met him in the study. As quickly as he could manage, he followed her down the hallway to one of the practice piano rooms on the main floor, just off the chamber that housed the organ. Draco felt relief that the intruder had left it untouched. A piano could be replaced, but the Malfoy family organ was priceless. As they approached the door, Draco heard a very familiar melody being hummed by the intruder.

When he swung the door open, Draco froze. The pounding in his chest picked up for an entirely different reason. 

There was Harry Potter sitting at an upright Steinway. He seemed oblivious to Draco and the house elf until Draco cleared his throat. Harry's whole body tensed, and then he turned, wide-eyed, to look at them. His eyes were glazed over, and he didn't speak. 

“How'd you get in?” Draco asked calmly. 

Harry blinked, still startled, in spite of the fact that he was the one trespassing after hours.

“I could never play an instrument. Tried piano for a while after. 'Mione tried to teach me.”

Draco remembered the piano at Grimmauld place that presumably Harry still owned. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night to find Harry sitting at it, trying to plink out a melody, much the same way he was now. Draco tried not to feel a clench of bitter-sweet nostalgia at the memory of Harry, wrapped in nothing but a bed sheet that was slipping off his shoulder, butchering 'chopsticks' on the old, out-of-tune piano. One night, Draco made his presence known. The way Harry had looked at him, with a sly smile, alluring in the candlelight, was forever burned in his memory. He had fucked Harry right there on the piano. 

In spite of everything that had happened between them before and since, there had been an intimacy between him and Harry that he had never felt with anyone again. Harry often let his guard down, opening up to him as they lay side by side in bed after they fucked. They were both braver in the darkness, as if the light made them feel too exposed. They knew that everything that happened between them in the cloak of darkness was theirs alone. Draco missed that closeness as much as he missed the sex. 

“Are you drunk?” Draco asked, though the answer was obvious.

“Maybe a little.” Harry said as he slumped down on the bench, dragging his hands across the keyboard in a descending scale.

Draco came up behind the bench and put a tentative hand on Harry's back to steady him. 

“Why here?” he whispered. It wasn't the question he meant to ask, but he couldn't keep an emotional distance when he could feel the warmth of Harry's body against his palm. 

“Because you're everywhere. Why're you ev'rywhere, Draco?” Harry responded.

Harry rarely used his first name, and that was it—the last of Draco's self-preservation left him. Harry wasn't all right. He wasn't okay. Draco was fully convinced that Hermione's concern hadn't been misplaced. In spite of how well he pulled himself together for whatever weird business he had with the seers and Luna's foretellings, the broken boy Draco had known all those years ago was still there. 

He hated seeing Harry like this. Harry was supposed to be everything that was hopeful in the world. Even when Draco had been forced into the Dark Lord's work, there was a part of him he locked away that hoped Harry would prevail. 

“Let's get you home,” was all Draco could say.

It was difficult to manoeuvre Harry's uncooperative weight with one hand occupied by his cane, but Harry willingly stumbled along, his body pressed too closely to Draco's. 

When they got to the fireplace, Harry gave him the coordinates. Once they arrived through the fireplace, he managed to coax the password out of Harry so he could get through his wards.

It was the first time Draco had ever been in Harry's flat. He had no idea where in London it was located. It could have been in the same neighbourhood as Draco or on the South Bank for all he knew. The décor was sparse, but the flat wasn't sterile. A crooked portrait frame hung above the fireplace, and Draco knew it belonged to Fred. Charlie'd had a matching one in Romania. An afghan that carried the distinct mark of Molly's handiwork was carelessly thrown on the sofa, along with a few fluffy pillows.

The only real oddity in the room were the crystal balls that littered the coffee table, along with stacks of rolled parchment piled in an ancient armchair that Draco recognized from Grimmauld Place. It seemed obvious that the foretellings and weekly meetings with the seers weren't a passing fancy. 

Draco didn't know where to deposit Harry, but Harry took the dilemma out of his hands by stumbling down a hallway. Draco could barely keep up, but he could hardly let Harry go with the way he was clinging to Draco's robe to keep his balance. 

Draco murmured a Lumos in order to see where he was going. At the end of the hallway, they reached a bedroom. Harry's bed was neatly made and looked hardly slept in, unlike the untidy sofa in the sitting room. 

Harry let go of Draco suddenly and stumbled the last few steps to the bed, passing out before Draco could even help him out of his shoes. 

Draco didn't know what else to do, so he fumbled his way to the bathroom they had passed in the hall. He found a hangover potion in the cupboard. He set it next to Harry's bed, before carefully taking off Harry's glasses. He resisted the urge to brush away the lock of hair that had slipped onto Harry's forehead, and placed the spectacles next to the potion. 

As soon as Draco got back to his flat he went right for his brandy. It was the exact opposite response he should have had, seeing Harry drunk and maudlin in a bad way, but he needed a drink for one very important reason. Draco saw movement out of the corner of his eye as he poured the brandy. 

“He remembers the song I wrote for him,” he said. 

Severus huffed.

“I know you think it's stupid and sentimental, but he remembers. That means something.”

“I think you'll find my revulsion is based solely on the fact that you wrote Potter a song in the first place.”

“He didn't know I wrote it.”

“That doesn't make it better.”

Draco shot the portrait a patented Malfoy glare, knowing full well that Snape was immune to it. 

He had made up his mind as soon as he heard that string of notes as he stood in the hallway of the Manor. Harry had gotten under his skin twelve years before, longer if he truly thought about it, and he was still under his skin. Draco would never be able to move on from it if he didn't give it a chance. 

“I'm going to try to get to know him again.”

“I told you so,” Snape said drily. 

“I have to at least give it a chance,” Draco asserted, before he slugged back the rest of the brandy.

Snape said nothing. 

Draco gave Harry three days to contact him, but he received no owled apology for breaking into the Conservatory nor a 'thank you' for seeing to it that he didn't die of alcohol poisoning, choking on his own sick. Were it anyone else, Draco would have written him off as too boorish to bother with; uncouth behaviour was still something Draco had a low level of tolerance for. Growing up in the upper class had trained him in etiquette from childhood, but he knew Harry well enough to know that embarrassment would trump manners. He couldn't be too hard on Harry, anyway. Harry Potter had always had a way of making Draco's carefully schooled exterior break and let his emotions overtake him. 

So, on Tuesday, Draco once again waited outside the wellness centre for Harry to finish his appointment.

If Harry was surprised to see him leaning against the gate, he didn't show it. 

“Lunch?” Draco offered brightly.

Harry narrowed his eyes at Draco. Draco winced and started to regret the excursion entirely, but then Harry surprised Draco and nodded. 

“Same place we went last time?” Draco asked.

“The tom yum goong _was_ really good.”

Draco set off and Harry fell in step beside him. Harry didn't seem unsettled by Draco's slow pace. Draco could never walk anywhere with Hermione. She walked with purpose, and even though she tried to slow to his pace, Draco knew his gait frustrated her. It was something Draco was hyperaware of, but there was nothing in Harry's body language that indicated he was holding himself back. 

“This time you were definitely following me,” Harry said after a minute.

“I was waiting for you, there's a difference.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see if you were all right.”

“Oh?” Harry seemed genuinely confused.

“Breaking and entering while intoxicated? Horrible, atonal piano playing? Is this ringing a bell?”

Harry blushed. “I'm sorry about that. I'm still not sure how I got through all the wards. I was taking a walk, just thinking about, well, things, and I wanted a piano. I dunno.”

Draco had inspected the wards the day after Harry's break-in. It was actually through a sheer burst of magical power that he had managed his entry. Draco had never seen anything like it before. It was reassuring that there was very likely no other wizard in the world who could manage the feat, but it was also a little terrifying, both that Harry had so much power, but also that it still turned Draco on. He'd had a brilliant wank in the shower after inspecting the wards, but he tamped down that memory lest he lose all decorum and throw himself at Harry in vain hope. 

Instead, he replied, “If you'd like to use the practice rooms, you only have to ask.” 

That only made Harry blush and hang his head.

“I'm bollocks at the piano.” Then, so quietly Draco barely heard, he added, “You know that.”

“You might have taken lessons. We do offer them for adults, if you change your mind.”

Harry stopped in his tracks and started shaking his head. “I haven't been able to figure out what your angle is. What you're trying to do. What you want from me.”

“Why do I have to want something from you?” Draco leaned on his cane. 

“Everyone wants something from me,” Harry snapped. 

Draco inhaled sharply and winced. If Harry really thought Draco was using him for some reason, then he had his work cut out for him. Harry didn't trust easily, and Draco understood that better than anyone. But Draco _didn't_ want something from Harry. He just wanted Harry. There was something between them that was worthwhile to him, more worthwhile than any tangible thing Harry could possibly give him or do for him.

He took a chance. He grabbed Harry's wrist and forced Harry to turn until he was looking into his eyes.

“If you honestly think I'm trying to use you for some nefarious purpose, then I'll leave this moment and never attempt to contact you again.”

Harry rubbed his hands over his eyes.

“Sorry. I didn't mean that. It was rough today, with Luna and the seers.”

Draco released Harry's wrist gently. He tilted his head and took the opportunity to change the subject from his motives. “And it's not some kind of therapy?” Draco had been doing some reading. Apparently a Muggle named Sigmund something used to make his patients remember their childhoods. It sounded like something seers would try to do.

“No. Sometimes it helps the way therapy's supposed to, I think, but no. I don't want to talk about it.”

“It seems there's a lot you don't want to talk about.”

“You don't understand. You don't know what it's like.” Harry raised his voice. “I'm supposed to be Harry Fucking Potter. But I can't do it. I can't kiss babies and shake hands and pretend like all is well in the universe because Voldemort's dead! It's not all right.”

The 'I'm not all right' went unspoken.

Harry paced back and forth on the pavement and looked so worked up, Draco was worried he might use some errant magic in the middle of a Muggle street. There wasn't an Apparition point nearby, so Draco put his hand on Harry's arm once more and dragged them into the first alley they came across. 

From there, he Apparated them both into the middle of his sitting room. 

Before Harry could dare say a single word of protest, Draco dropped Harry's arm, took the handle of his cane in both hands and slammed the tip down hard. That got Harry's attention. 

“I'm crippled, Potter!” Draco shouted. “I'm 30 years old and I walk like I'm Barry Wee Willie Winkle! Muggles see me on the street and they feel sorry for me! They give up their seats for me on the Tube. They pity me! Do you have any idea what it's like to be pitied by strangers? Everywhere you go? Children come up to me and say, 'What's wrong with you?' every bloody day of my life.”

Harry blinked.

“But you have it all together. The poise, the attitude, the Malfoyness.” Harry waved his hands at Draco. “You make it look so easy.”

Draco turned and took three steps toward the window. He set his cane against the wall and clenched his hands behind his back. He couldn't look at Harry as he said it. 

“I try really hard,” he confessed. “But that doesn't mean it doesn't get to me.”

Draco didn't wait for Harry to respond. The words that had always gone unspoken between them needed to come out for them to have a chance at being more than passing acquaintances. Draco needed Harry to understand. 

“And do you know why I'm crippled? Did you ever wonder? It was because I was 'punished' for not torturing well enough! You told me you saw what I had to do to Thorfinn, and that was only the tip of the iceberg. When I close my eyes, I can see their faces. I can see their faces twisted in pain that I caused. And if it were only the guilt of the terror I had to inflict, I might be able to cope with it, because I was terrified too. But those aren't the worst memories. That's not why I wake up drenched in sweat at least once a week...” Draco couldn't say it. He knew Harry knew exactly what memory it was that haunted him most. “I wake up from nightmares where I'm burning, where the Muggle-borns I tortured are burning me, where you're falling off your broom into the—”

Draco cut himself off with a choked sob and turned around to see that Harry had inched closer to him. He took a deep breath, trying to gather himself. This wasn't supposed to be about him, but he was so far from having it together the way Harry had suggested. 

“I didn't mean to burden you with all of that, but I might understand better than you think.”

“No, it's—I didn't know. I guessed, about the torture. I read some things about dark magic doing permanent damage, but I can't imagine what you lived through.”

Harry didn't say “I'm sorry,” and that gesture made all the difference to Draco. Harry didn't pity him. He never had, and that was why Draco needed Harry. Harry came up to the window and leaned against the sill.

“Thank you,” Harry continued. “For telling me that.”

There was one more thing Draco needed to say, a vulnerability he never shared with anyone, not Charlie, not Blaise, not Hermione, not even Severus' portrait. He took a deep breath before speaking. 

“The worst part, though, isn't the memories or the pain. Dreamless sleep potion helps. Muggle drugs help with the physical pain. What's worse is that I still bear the dark mark, and the thing I fear most in this world is that I'll feel it again. Sometimes I imagine that buzzing sensation on my skin, and that feeling is worse than all the rest of it combined.”

Harry had closed his eyes while Draco was speaking, but when Draco lapsed into silence, Harry opened them. His expression was open and hurt, and Draco wanted to reach out to him and pull him in, so they could try to absorb some of each other's pain the way they had done as teenagers.

“I can't speak Parseltongue anymore,” Harry said quietly.

It took Draco a moment for the implication to sink in.

“Sometimes I'll see a snake and try. I'll try to say something to it the way I used to without realizing it, and it terrifies me every time. Because what if it understands me, what if it says something back?” 

Draco opened his mouth to reassure Harry, but he couldn't placate him for the same thing Draco feared. 

Harry shook his head. “I admire you, you know.”

“Admire me?”

“What I said before, about the poise and the Malfoyness. What you've done with the Conservatory. You might be afraid of what's to come, but we all are, aren't we? The future is scary for all of us. That's why people go to seers, to get some kind of reassurance.” Harry stepped up to the window so they were side by side. “That's why I don't mind if they try to do readings on me. Because if they have something to say about my future, no matter how hare-brained or generic, it means something is there to tell. I dunno, really, it just helps to think I'm supposed to keep going.”

“I look at my appointment book every night, not because I ever forget my appointments but just to see that there are reasons for me to get up every day.”

“I think that would be nice,” Harry said. “I've tried to keep a regular job, but I just don't seem to work that way.” 

Draco thought about Charlie training dragons, Blaise giving lessons, and his own sporadic organ tuning appointments and Conservatory duties.

“A regular job doesn't always have a daily routine.”

“I know,” Harry said. “I know. I just, I should be able to at least keep _a_ job. I can't even keep a bloody investment. It was 12 years ago. I should be over it by now. I should be normal.”

Draco's heart lurched. “Normal? Harry, you're never going to be normal.”

“I know! You don't need to rub my face in it!”

“No, that's not what I meant. Even if there were such a thing as normal, which there's not, you never had a chance at normal.”

“Exactly!”

“So you can't look at it as if you're missing out on something, because you lost the chance when you were two years old to have whatever you have convinced yourself 'normal' is, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. So no, Harry, you shouldn't be normal. You should just be you.”

Harry looked like he was about to object or brush Draco off the way Draco knew he was capable of doing, but then he surprised Draco and laughed. “I'm not sure if I know who I am any more. I've seen myself as broken for so long, it's hard to think about myself as anything else.”

“So, you're broken. We're all broken.”

“Hermione's not broken.”

“Harry, do you have any idea what she went through when she was being held at the Manor by Bellatrix?”

“She never went into much detail.” 

“Don't tell her I told you this, but when she came to the Manor for Rose's lesson, she had a white knuckle grip on her wand the whole time.”

“Really?”

“She just deals with it better than you or I do, but we were all hurt by the War. An entire generation has completely up-ended whatever your idea of normal is.”

“So you're saying that I should just get over myself and cope.”

“We patch up our wounds as best we can, and sometimes they reopen. The only thing we can do is patch them up again.”

“Well said,” Harry murmured. “I could use that.”

“You're not broken if you keep trying and keep getting up each day.”

“Sometimes I forget,” Harry said. “When I see Ron in his Auror robes and the stack of Hermione's files on their kitchen table, I forget that they lived through it too. I don't think it's ever going to be like that for me, that it will be something I lived through instead of something I am.”

“You're probably right about that,” Draco murmured.

“So why should I keep trying?”

“I don't know, Harry. I just know that you should. I just know that it wouldn't do for the chosen one to bleed out.”

Harry glared at Draco, for the use of the nickname Harry hated. “Why do you care, Malfoy?”

“Draco.” Draco corrected.

“Why do you care, Draco?”

With the accusation in Harry's voice, another piece of Draco's patience crumbled.

“I've always cared, you idiot. I cared twelve years ago when I fell into your bed in Grimmauld Place, I was just too broken to know how to show you with something other than my cock up your arse!”

Harry's mouth dropped open. Whether it was at Draco's candidness or at the sheer fact that Draco cared about him enough to say so, Draco wasn't sure.

“Draco,” Harry repeated his name like an oath.

Then he closed the space between them and leaned in to press his lips against Draco's. He pulled back for a split second, as if giving Draco a chance to protest, and then he captured Draco's bottom lip between his, sucking gently on it before pulling away again.

And then Harry Apparated right out of the room. 

It wasn't how Draco expected their second kiss to go. 

Draco didn't go after him. He leaned against the windowsill, stunned, and brought a finger to his lips to chase the feeling of Harry's against his. 

After he managed to regain his composure, he tried not to get his hopes up. He didn't think this would automatically change anything between them. But there was something between them. There had been then, but they got too carried away, like a fire out of control. With that kiss, though, Draco knew something still burned between them, and he could stoke it into flames. 

Of course, with Harry Potter, it was always one step forward, two steps back. 

He decided to be cautious and sent Harry an owl a few days after the kiss, asking if he was free for dinner that weekend. 

He got a generic, “Sorry, I'm busy.”

So, he had dinner with Charlie instead. It could have been different, now that Charlie was finally single again. If it were a year earlier, or even a month, they would have gone back to Draco's flat and fallen into bed and it would have been good and familiar. Draco could have gotten the itch scratched and they would go back to being friends like they had done before. But the same maudlin mood that seemed to hang over Charlie was still there, and with Draco having planted a vain hope in his head that Harry could return his feelings, he couldn't see Charlie as a possibility for a friendly shag. 

They were in the middle of a shared guilty pleasure—Muggle fish and chips—when Charlie blurted out, “I saw Harry on Thursday.” 

“Why does everyone always talk to me about Harry Potter?” Draco asked, intending the question to be rhetorical.

“Because you've been in love with him since you were a teenager?” Charlie said it like a question. 

Draco's reflex was to protest, but he couldn't. The answer would always be Harry. Draco picked absently at his chips. 

“This is punishment for being so spoilt as a child. I got used to getting everything I wanted.” 

“You can have him too, you know.”

Draco again wanted to disagree, but the memory of Harry's lips was still too fresh. “I want to believe that, but, well, Harry's not making it clear if an advance would be welcome.”

“Hermione needled him until he admitted that he saw you this week. How'd that go?”

“Oh, I did see him. Forcefully Apparated him to my flat actually,” Draco said.

Charlie snorted. 

Draco shot him a glare. “We hashed out a few things, but I doubt anything will come of it. He turned down my dinner invitation.”

“Well, lucky for you, Harry stuttered around Hermione's questions like a blushing school boy.” 

Draco couldn't stop his smile. Charlie smiled back. And then an unpleasant thought struck Draco.

“Does it bother him that you and I used to date?”

“To be fair, we did very little dating. I think we got takeaway once.”

“You know what I meant!”

“I've asked him about it before, and he said something to the effect of, 'I'm glad he was able to keep going and move on'.”

“Did he mean it?”

“I think he did. Though, I did correct him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told him that it was admirable that you were able to keep going, but he was sorely mistaken to think you'd ever moved on.”

“Oh.”

“It's okay, Draco. We were never going to be Mr. and Mr. Weasley-Malfoy.”

“Malfoy-Weasley,” Draco corrected. “It's alphabetical.”

“Of course,” Charlie said with a wink. “Conveniently 'Malfoy' also comes before 'Potter' alphabetically.”

“If you don't like it, take it up with the alphabet.” Draco cleared his throat. “Say, thank you for talking to me about this. You're my favourite ex-boyfriend by far.”

“I'm glad I beat out Fritz the opera singer.”

“Dreadful man. There was a reason he could hit a high F, that's all I'm saying.”

Charlie laughed. It was the first real laugh Draco had heard from him since he got to England.

“I care about Harry, too. He's been an honorary Weasley for twenty years. I think you could be good for each other.”

“I think we could too,” Draco confessed.

“You're going to have to fight for it, but don't let Harry fool you and let you think he isn't interested. I think maybe he isn't finished punishing himself yet.”

“Then I'll just have to convince him he deserves to move on.”

“Cheers to that,” Charlie said, raising his pint. 

Draco went to the Conservatory the next day. 

Normally he would check on the resident musicians, but he wasn't there for business. He slipped into the organ room, locking it behind him. Then he cast a Silencio and sat down at the console. 

The Malfoy family organ had been a part of the Manor since the 14th century, although it had been upgraded significantly over the years. It was different from a Muggle organ in that the bellows were charmed, though Draco had to admit to being fascinated with the use of electric and electro-pneumatic action that Muggles had started using. The Malfoy family organ was a gorgeous instrument. The pipe work Armand Malfoy had commissioned was stunningly ornate, and in spite of mechanical improvements, its beauty withstood the test of time.

His hands were stiff as he spread them out on the keys. It didn't matter anyway. He couldn't manoeuvre his feet on the pedals, so the sound the organ made when he pressed the first chord with his left hand was only in the high register. Resigned, Draco added his right hand and began to play in earnest. It didn't sound like his favourite Bach toccata, watered down without the low register, but the tone of the instrument was still perfect. Draco tuned it himself regularly. 

As always, playing was bitter-sweet. His fingers were stiff and slow, his feet useless, and he would always feel a little sorry for himself. But then, even without his body mangled by dark magic, he never would have become a virtuoso. 

Draco heard music clearly in his head, but he could never quite get his hands to finish the connection. He let the butchered Bach slip away from his fingers, and with his right hand, he played the melody that he had written so many years before. 

In the darkness after the war, after the first night he spent with Harry, the tune had sprung into his head like a revelation. He used to write music all the time when he was home, not just when he was messing about with Blaise. His childhood was spent in music lessons, learning theory and instruments, but then Draco's life became a battle of following orders and spouting ideals he never thought to challenge, so he suppressed that part of himself. He cut music out of his life. He didn't want Voldemort to somehow take that away from him too. 

When he got back to his flat, he Flooed Hermione and asked for Harry's schedule for the week, and she was far too happy to oblige him. 

On Wednesday, when Draco was sure Harry was occupied with watching Hugo, Draco went to the Wellness Centre.

He didn't know what to expect when he went in. As he pushed open the door, he braced himself for black velvet and shrunken heads. What he found was a waiting room. There were also displays with pamphlets in them and bottles with labels like “Positive Thinking,” “Spiritual Renewal,” and “Clarity,” all draped in the cloying smell of incense.

Draco guessed that the man sitting behind the desk with a long, grey ponytail and glasses resting on the tip of his nose was the receptionist. 

“I'm here to see Luna,” Draco said.

He looked at Draco knowingly. “Then you want to go through this door.” He pointed to a door beside the desk that had the Eihwaz rune on it. 

He handed Draco a key and gave him an exaggerated wink—a squib then. The key warmed in Draco's hand, reading his magical signature. 

Draco could feel the wards shimmering around him as he passed through the door. It opened into another waiting room, only it looked more like a typical waiting area. Copies of _The Quibbler_ were on a low table surrounded by armchairs, a tea kettle was set up in the corner, and there were portraits of famous seers on the wall. 

There was no receptionist at the desk. 

Draco knew the wards alerted whoever was there to his presence, so he sat down and waited. Music was coming from a wireless behind the desk. Draco listened to the last few notes of a rock song he didn't recognise. 

“And that was The Weird Sisters with 'Gone, Gone, Gone'. Only two weeks until their latest album drops, just in time for your holiday shopping. Tune into WWN at 8 o'clock on Saturday for the premier of their new single 'Wake Me Up'. And now here's the latest from The Hippogriffs...”

Draco was tapping his fingers along with the rhythm when Luna came out from the back. 

“Draco Malfoy.” Her voice was the same as always, dreamy, lilting, as if a handful of sleigh bells got tossed into the air. She studied Draco carefully, her eyes lingering on the cane, but unlike most, there was no pity on her face. 

“Have you considered acupuncture?” 

“Acu-what?”

“It's an ancient practice of penetrating the skin with needles that stimulates specific points on the body to redirect the flow of your qi. It's been used to cure arthritis since the 16th century.”

“No, er, I use Muggle drugs to cope with the pain mostly.”

“I'll set up an appointment for you.”

“That's really not—”

“But you didn't come here for that, did you?”

“No, I actually wanted to talk to you about Harry.”

“What about Harry?” In spite of her sweet tone, her arms were crossed and Draco could see the fierce protectiveness she had over Harry. 

“You're close with him, and I know he's been working with you on some of your foretellings. I'm not really asking about the work he's helping you with. I mostly just wanted to know that from your point of view, is he—is he okay?”

Luna tilted her head and looked up at the ceiling for a few moments. “Harry's in transition right now,” she finally said.

“Transition?” 

“Yes. There's a change coming to him, I think, but it's starting from the inside this time, and that's why I'm fairly certain it will be a good change.”

It was the first time one of Harry's friends didn't seem worried about him, or at least, it didn't sound like worry.

“So, you aren't concerned about him for any reason?” Draco asked.

“I'm always concerned about Harry, but there's nothing to indicate he won't be all right, in the end.” Before Draco could question, Luna changed the subject. “Harry is trying to make sense of some readings. I know you aren't a believer yourself, but he is quite good at it.” 

“Regardless of what I might think about divination, I do believe in Harry.”

Luna smiled. 

“It won't be easy. It will never be easy,” Luna said, her eyes boring into Draco's with an intensity that made him want to flinch. 

“I don't want easy.”

Luna looked at him carefully up and down before nodding, and Draco couldn't help but feel like she was giving him permission. 

“It's good that you came here, Draco. Harry needs someone to look out for him. He's spent so much time looking after everyone else.”

“I will if he lets me.” 

“I have a feeling about you two,” Luna said mysteriously before handing him a business card. Draco looked at it and saw it was for an acupuncturist. “He does very good work. You might be surprised at the wisdom that emerges when you take the body and spirit as a whole.”

After leaving Luna's, Draco was restless. His plan to take things carefully with Harry suddenly seemed foolish. He just wanted to see him, and Harry's friends had all made it seem that his advances wouldn't be unwelcome. 

He took a chance and went to Harry's flat. He knew the password to get through the wards, and was pleasantly surprised to see they didn't reject his magical signature. The flat was dim in the fading sunlight coming through the windows. The crystal balls were still there, but they were surrounded by bits of crumpled parchment. In fact, parchment and Muggle paper was scattered all over the writing desk, the coffee table, and a small pile had accumulated near the rubbish bin in the corner.

Harry was sitting on the sofa. He didn't seem surprised to see Draco. 

“You didn't change the wards back to keep me out.”

“They weren't to keep you out specifically,” Harry sounded sheepish.

“Why is it that every time we kiss, you try to disappear on me?”

Harry's face flushed deep red. “It was only two times.”

Draco picked past the crumpled papers and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa, leaning his cane up against it.

“You kissed me the second time. You kissed me. I meant what I said. If you don't want this, you can tell me and I'll stop. I'll go away. We can go back to acknowledging each other at Ministry functions and having Hermione cluck at us disapprovingly.”

The silence stretched on for what felt like an age.

“I don't want that,” Harry finally said. 

“What are you afraid of, Harry?” Draco couldn't keep the exasperation out of his voice. 

“I'm afraid of everything. That I'll never be fixed. That I'll never be whole. That there's no purpose.” Harry twisted a loose thread on the afghan between his fingers. 

Draco sat down tentatively on the opposite end of the sofa. 

“I used to think that too. That the corruption of all the things the Dark—Voldemort had me do broke me into so many pieces I'd never be okay again.”

“You don't think so now? Even with all the—” Harry paused. “Bad memories?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because we'll never be whole. We can't wait until we're fully healed because we'll always carry scars, but those scars make us who we are and they remind us.” As he spoke, the melody he wrote for Harry all those years before popped into his head. It had been a love song then even if he didn't know it. “And because I'm capable of love. I know that now.”

Harry's gasped “oh” made Draco's heart start pounding in his chest. He inched closer to Harry until they were side-by-side, thighs pressed against each other. 

“Are you going to run away again?”

“Possibly.”

Draco cupped Harry's face in his hands.

“I'd much rather you didn't.”

Then he captured Harry's lips with his. He kept the kiss gentle, cradling the back of Harry's neck. 

That gesture seemed to be all it took, because Harry melted against him. He pushed himself into Draco's space, pressing his chest against Draco's, wrapping an arm around Draco's shoulders. Harry deepened the kiss, pushing his tongue against Draco's. 

He guided Draco backward until he was lying on the sofa. Draco's cane clattered to the floor. They didn't break the kiss for more than a second as Harry climbed onto Draco. He straddled Draco's leg, rolling his hips against it, so Draco brought his hands up to Harry's arse.

He wanted to rip their clothes off. He wanted to take Harry apart with his tongue, to spread him out and watch him dissolve into a boneless heap, but it was too much, too soon. Draco wasn't ready to jump back into their old dynamic, and once he was on top of Draco, Harry didn't seem to want to be the one to make another move either. Anyway, kissing Harry was still a novelty. Draco had been dreaming of Harry's lips for twelve years.

So, they snogged and rutted against each other until they were both so uncomfortably hard Draco had to make an excuse about an early morning appointment the next day. Harry didn't try to stop him from leaving, and Draco noticed him not so surreptitiously adjusting himself in his trousers.

When Draco came in the shower that night, stroking himself off more desperately and faster than he had in longer than he could remember, he was thinking of Harry doing the exact same thing. 

Draco had made Harry promise to Floo him. Draco had low expectations on him following through, which was why he didn't expect to see Harry's face in his fireplace three days later. 

“Hullo, Draco.”

“Hi, Harry. Would you like to come through?”

“Okay.” Harry said, though he seemed unsure. “I don't want to interrupt anything.”

“My only plan for the day was to read _The Prophet_ out loud to Severus' portrait. You aren't interrupting.”

Harry didn't stumble out of fireplaces the way Draco remembered him doing in his gangly 18-year-old body, but he was fidgety, looking around Draco's flat like he didn't know if he was allowed to be there or not. 

Draco tried to kiss away his hesitation.

“Hi,” he said, smiling against Harry's lips. 

“Hi,” Harry whispered back.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Harry said before he kissed Draco back. 

Draco could have stayed in all day kissing Harry, but as it turned out, Harry actually had a reason for visiting. They went shopping together in Diagon Alley. Harry had holiday shopping to do but hated going alone, and Harry seemed to remember that Draco always liked seeing the shops decked out for the season—a fact which made Draco's stomach leap up into his throat.

It was a Thursday, so the street wasn't crowded, but much to Draco's delight, it was decorated with all the Christmas finery. Shops were trimmed with lights and garlands. Window displays were charmed with trains moving around merchandise or made to look like Santa's grotto. Sugarplum's had an elaborate scene of nougat snowmen and laughing children sledding all under a canopy of falling sugared snow. Even the temporary vendor stalls were decked with red ribbons and holly. 

Their first stop was The Junk Shop to look for some token that Arthur would find amusing. Draco never cared for the establishment, mostly because of all the clutter and dust, but the shop was also noisy. When they walked into the shop, an old radio that looked about a hundred years old, though it was fully functioning, was blasting the Weird Sisters. It was fitting, as the shop windows were covered in posters announcing their new album release, just in time for the Yule holidays.

“I can't seem to go anywhere without the Weird Sisters' new album cropping up these days.”

“Oh?” Harry squeaked. “Do you not like them?”

“It's not that I don't like them. I was obsessed with 'Phoenix Rising' after the war, but I never listened to much after that. I felt like nothing else would ever compare.” 

“That was always my favourite too,” Harry said. 

He grabbed the toy cube with six coloured faces that Draco was holding out of his free hand and set it back down on the display. Then he laced their fingers together, and Draco forgot about the blaring music entirely. 

Harry found what he called a “mechanical piggy bank” that was actually a hideous-looking clown. If you set a Knut down on the clown's hand, some mechanism inside brought the hand up to the clown's mouth and he swallowed the coin. Harry said children used to save their allowances in such things, and Draco nodded absently as he combed through the shop's collection of musical instruments.

Draco ended up buying something Harry called a 'kazoo'. It was cheap plastic and made a hideous sound, but it was an instrument Draco didn't own, and Harry insisted his collection would be incomplete without it.

From The Junk Shop, they went to Twilfitt and Tattings so Draco could buy a scarf for his mother. Then it was to Wiseacres, so Harry could find some kind of charmed gardening tool for Neville Longbottom. That acquired, Harry suggested they go to Flourish and Blotts. 

Draco thought about all the stairs in the shop and the narrow rows of books.

“I need to stop for a bit first,” he sighed, leaning heavily on his cane.

“Oh,” Harry said, obviously flustered. “I didn't think.”

“It's okay, I just need to rest for a moment.”

Draco walked ten paces to a bench between the flower vendor and the stall selling roasted nuts and sat down. Harry followed and sat beside him. 

“You don't mind?” Draco asked.

“Mind taking a break? Of course not. I get overwhelmed in all these shops. I usually end up ordering most of my gifts by catalogue.”

“I meant, do you not mind that I'm a cripple? That you have to slow down for me and carry things for me?”

“I don't _have_ to do any of those things for you, Draco.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“You said it. We all carry scars from the war. Your scars are just more visible. And if I like you, then I must like your scars, too.”

Draco's heart caught in his throat. He grabbed Harry's hand and pulled it between his, holding it tightly in his lap. 

“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?” he asked.

“Well, I usually have dinner with Ron and Hermione on Fridays. You could come?”

“A date, Harry. I want to take you on a proper date.”

“Oh, I-”

“Granger will understand. Weasley, too.”

“I, well, I guess they probably will.”

They went to a few more shops, and Draco finished shopping for everyone except Harry, making notes of the things he lingered on. Draco only got tokens for his parents, for Blaise and Pansy, and for Hermione and Charlie. This year he had a feeling he should probably get the Weasleys all something, so Harry helped him pick out a transfiguring jigsaw puzzle. Every year at Christmas, they had a tradition of putting one together as a family. 

When they parted ways that afternoon, Draco told Harry he'd be at his flat the next day at six and to wear something warm.

The dinner Draco had planned was nothing extravagant. He didn't want to go out to Muggle London, or to any of the trendier wizarding night spots, or anywhere they would be gawked at, so they went to a little French place in Harry's neighbourhood where Draco knew Harry had never been. Draco got to show off his French, and the food was rich and satisfying, perfect fare for the chilly evening. 

“Now, for the main event,” Draco said as he led Harry to the Apparition point at the end of the street.

“Where are we going?” 

“You're going to have to trust me, Harry.”

Harry didn't respond with an affirmation, but he didn't stop walking or ask to turn back, so Draco took that as a good sign.

Harry did seem surprised, however, when they arrived outside the Ministry. 

“We won't be inside for long, I promise,” Draco said after he felt Harry stiffen. 

Harry nodded, and allowed himself to be led down the main hallway to the elevators. When they got inside, Draco pressed a button to the top floor. From there, he led Harry to a narrow, locked door at the end of a hallway. He produced a key from his cloak with a flourish. 

“Draco, where are we going?”

“We're almost there, I promise.”

On the other side of the door was a flight of narrow steps that Draco had to take very slowly. At the top was the final door that opened up onto the roof. 

“Oh,” Harry gasped as he stepped out behind Draco. “I had no idea you could get up here.” 

“It's mostly only used for stargazing.” Pansy worked in the Astronomical Affairs division, and Draco had convinced her to help him orchestrate this portion of his plans. 

“You can see the whole city. This is amazing, Draco.”

“I told you we wouldn't be inside for long.” 

Draco went over to the picnic basket, right where he had instructed Pansy to leave it. He pulled a blanket out of the basket first and spread it on the roof tiles, and then sat down facing not out to the city but toward the Ministry courtyard, where hundreds of wizards had started to gather. 

Every year, the Ministry hosted a ceremony where they lit up the giant Yule tree with thousands of twinkling fairy lights. The noise from the crowd gathering below brought Harry over toward Draco.

“So, this is why it had to be tonight,” Harry said as he sat down.

“My parents used to bring me here every year. They always timed it for the first evening after the schools let out for the holidays. We would come here and then go back to the Manor where the house elves were finishing trimming the Manor. I haven't been in 15 years.” 

“I bet you were even more of a spoiled brat at Christmas than you were the rest of the year.”

“I resent that!” Draco huffed. “Although there might be some truth to that.” 

Harry's laughter was cut off by a shiver. Draco pulled a second blanket from the basket and offered it to Harry. “I could cast a warming spell instead.”

“I could too, you know.”

Draco rolled his eyes. 

“No,” Harry said. “I like this. I like feeling the chill.”

“Maybe this will help,” Draco said, before producing a Muggle Thermos with a flourish and handing it to Harry.

“What's this?”

“Taste it.”

Harry screwed off the lid and then put his lips to the container and tilted it slowly. Draco knew exactly when Harry got a taste, because an obscene moan escaped from deep in his throat.

“What is this?”

“Drinking chocolate. Family recipe.”

“This is better than pumpkin juice.”

“High praise.”

“Compliments to your house elves,” Harry said, taking another long drink.

“You wound me, Harry. I made this batch myself.”

“Will you ever stop surprising me?”

“I hope not.” 

Harry flushed, and settled in against Draco's side. Draco revelled in the warmth of Harry's body pressed against his, then wrapped an arm around Harry to bring him even closer. 

A voice boomed down below announcing the lighting. They sat in silence as the Minister used his wand to ignite the first light, and from there, like a chain reaction, lights ignited, swirling up the tree to the topmost branches. But that was only the beginning. Harry gasped as the fairies flew in from all directions, carrying the coloured lights, tinsel, and baubles that they settled on the tree between the lights. As always, their movements were a perfectly choreographed dance. In a matter of minutes, the entire tree was dressed in a spectacular show of sparkling lights and colours.

Finally, it was time for Draco's favourite part, sending the ceremonious dragon to top the tree. It wasn't a real dragon, of course; it was charmed to sit curled around the top branch, breathing a small flame that would burn until the new year. The honour was bestowed upon the longest-serving Ministry employee. This year the honour went to an old witch who had been a clerk in the Department of Magical Games and Sports office for a century. She cast a Wingardium Leviosa, and the dragon swooped to the top and took its place. With a snort and a shake of its head, sparkling fire burst from its snout.

That was the cue for the boys choir to start singing carols. As the sounds of the Carol of the Bells made it up to the roof, Harry leaned his head to rest on Draco's shoulder. 

“This is very romantic, Draco,” Harry said.

Draco flushed. “Well, I didn't give you romance last time.”

Harry lifted his head. “I wouldn't have been very receptive to it last time.”

Draco kissed Harry's temple and looked back out at the lights dancing on the tree branches. 

“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art.  
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night.  
And watching, with eternal lids apart,  
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite...” Harry trailed off. 

“You know Shakespeare was a wizard,” Draco said, recognizing the sonnet. 

“He was not.”

“That's the reason why Muggles have so much trouble understanding his plays. Did you know they think he invented the word 'gnarled'? As if the gnarled variety of Snargaluff didn't exist before the 16th century.”

“Draco?”

“Yes.”

“Hush,” Harry said, just as he leaned in for a kiss. 

Draco smiled against Harry's lips before kissing him in earnest, pulling Harry toward him. 

“Thank you for this,” Harry said as he pulled back, brushing his thumb against Draco's lips. 

Draco took out the second blanket and wrapped it around their shoulders. They stayed through a few more carols. Harry sang along with the ones he knew, and he cajoled Draco into singing along with the wizarding carols Harry didn't know. Draco never asked about Harry's upbringing. He knew enough to know his mother's family were awful people. In spite of everything, Draco was grateful he had some happy memories from his own childhood. 

Eventually the chill in the air got to be too much for both of them. Draco insisted on dropping Harry off at his flat so it could count as a proper date.

When Draco returned to his own flat, he ran a hot bath to ease his joints and think about the evening. The date had been nearly perfect. Harry seemed to enjoy the tree-lighting as much as Draco. Though he tried to watch Harry as much as the tree-lighting itself. Harry was always attractive, but the expression of open wonder on his face made him even more handsome. 

When they got to Harry's flat, Harry didn't invite Draco in and something held Draco back from making a move. There was still a barrier between them. Draco told himself he wanted to make sure Harry reciprocated his feelings before he jumped into bed with him again, but Draco knew there was more to it than that.

A fitful night of dreams gave him his answer. 

As soon as Draco woke up the next morning, he sent Hermione an owl, announcing his arrival. Ten minutes later, he Flooed into the Granger-Weasley's kitchen where Hermione was waiting for him with a cup of tea. 

“I'm in love with Harry,” Draco blurted out.

“I know, Draco.”

“I don't want to get hurt again,” Draco whispered.

Hermione stepped forward and pulled Draco into an embrace. Draco clung tightly to her until he gathered his composure. As good a friend as Hermione had become over the years, Draco was still averse to giving in to displays of vulnerability. He stepped out of her embrace and sank down at the kitchen table, putting his head in his hands. 

Hermione brought his teacup over and set it in front of him.

“Twelve years ago, I would have told you to give Harry space and to not get your hopes up.”

“But now?” Draco asked. 

“Harry still has things to work through, but letting you into his life and his heart isn't one of them. In the past few weeks, Harry has become more alive than I've seen him in a long time.”

“Hmm...” Draco mused, but doubt still lingered. He wondered if the changes in Harry's behaviour had anything to do with his work with Luna and the seers, and not him at all.

Hermione reached out her hand and covered Draco's with it. 

“He hasn't said it out loud, but he feels the same way you do.”

“Is it worth it?” Draco asked softly.

At that moment, a sleepy-looking Ron stumbled into the kitchen. His hair was a mess, his pyjamas were rumpled, and he was scratching his belly absently. He didn't seem surprised to see Draco there.

“I promised the kids waffles. You staying for breakfast, Malfoy?”

The soft smile on Hermione's face as she looked at Ron while he pulled together the ingredients for waffles was all the answer he needed. 

Still, Draco stayed cautious. Harry had the power to break Draco in an entirely new set of ways that Draco had never considered.

They owled back and forth for the next couple days, until Draco got an owl from Harry, asking him to dinner that night. Draco had had a tuning appointment that day, so he went to Harry's right after. 

The first thing Draco noticed when he arrived was that Harry's flat was less cluttered.

The crystal balls seemed to mostly be gone, and the crumpled bits of parchment had been cleared from the floor and the coffee table. With the clutter gone, Draco noticed a stack of albums and a turntable in the corner. Most wizards had adapted to the Muggle methods of listening to music, putting thousands of songs into a teeny tiny metal box seemed an awful lot like magic, but Draco still liked the records he grew up with.

They were planning on going out, but there were dark circles under Harry's eyes as he trudged into the sitting room to greet Draco. Though he was in trousers and a jumper, his feet were bare.

“Let's stay in,” Draco suggested. 

The fact that Harry didn't protest was a sign of just how tired he was. Draco made his way over to the sofa, hoping Harry would follow him before he collapsed in exhaustion. Draco picked up the lone crystal ball on the coffee table and looked into it. 

“Part of the reason why I hated Divination in school was because I was bollocks at it. I haven't looked into a crystal ball since fourth year.” 

Harry sat down beside him. “This isn't a new thing for me, whatever anyone has told you. You know I studied with Trelawney for a few years right after the war?” 

“I'd heard rumours of the sort.”

Harry snorted. “You mean the 'The Chosen One Has the Third Eye' headlines blasted on the front of _The Daily Prophet_?”

“That paper was always a rag.”

“I bet you thought I'd gone mental.”

Draco sniffed and set down the crystal ball.

“Well, Hermione certainly did. It's why I can't tell her about what I'm doing with Luna.”

“Can you tell me more about it?” 

“You'll mock me.” 

He wondered if Luna had told Harry he stopped by the Centre. “I won't. I promise. Just because I never liked Divination doesn't mean it doesn't have value.”

Harry looked at Draco curiously. “Sometimes I think about the Draco Malfoy I knew at Hogwarts, and those words never would have come out of his mouth.”

“I was an arsehole.”

“You really were.”

“You know it was all façade, though, right?”

“I knew for sure that night in the Astronomy Tower.”

“I-” 

Harry shook his head and turned the conversation away. “Dumbledore didn't just insist on Divination being taught at Hogwarts because he felt he owed Trelawney. He understood its potential.”

Draco nodded. It had always been the main complaint in the Slytherin common room that Professor Trelawney only had a job because she and Dumbledore were friends.

“Prophecies don't just happen. The one that foretold 'the chosen one' was rare for a lot of reasons. It takes a skilled foreteller to be able to understand all the signs and to come up with a coherent string of words. Professor Trelawney is actually one of the most naturally talented seers in the world.”

“Her teaching skills could have used some work.”

“I didn't enjoy her class any more than you did. She always told me I was in grave danger and that I was going to die.”

“And she was right,” Draco spoke the words that hung between them. 

“She was. We think about prophecies in terms of what they predict, but what they really do is write history. The power we have is to interpret them. I did die, but I also came back. Trelawney never told me that. She never suggested it was possible. After it turned out I didn't die, it started to bother me.” Harry shifted. “I never thought I had the 'sight' but after the war I became obsessed with the prophecies. It was a prophecy that changed my life, and I thought maybe that there would be another one that would tell me what to do. I helped the Ministry in sorting them and reconstructing them after the war.”

“I never knew.”

“No one did except Kingsley and some of the Unspeakables. The papers all thought I was meeting with the Minister for political reasons.”

“What did you find?”

“I didn't find anything new, but I did come to understand that I'm a part of history. I realized in the aftermath of the war that kids are going to learn about me in school. Their books are going to get all the details wrong. They'll focus on the wrong things, the battles instead of the causes. The reason why Voldemort came back was because people forgot that history _does_ repeat itself. But it changes too. It changes if we tell it differently, because after everything that happened it's only words, just like the prophecies are only words. Don't you see?”

“You mean that there are different ways a prophecy can be fulfilled...?”

“We resign ourselves to fate and the inevitable, but there are a lot of ways that words can work. You know it could have been Neville instead of me. His mother could have saved him instead of mine saving me.”

“So this still doesn't explain your project with Luna. You're helping her transcribe her foretellings.” 

“Mostly, yes.”

Draco still felt as though he was missing something. “I think maybe I understand why it appealed to you,” he said tentatively.

“Let me put it this way, when you look at the organ, you see possibilities, right?”

Draco nodded.

“Well that's what I see when I look at words. There are an infinite number of combinations. Some of them foretell and some of them record history and some of them are cathartic and some of them just sound good strung together.”

“So you wanted to work with prophecies, because you felt connected to words.”

Harry added, “And the way we use them.”

“Why didn't you just become a writer then?”

“Well, I did do some writing, a lot actually, but it was more because I just had a lot of things I needed to get out on parchment that I couldn't seem to say aloud. It was freeing. It helped me sort out a lot of things that happened during the war.”

“So what was it, a memoir?”

“Something like that.”

“Did it help?”

Harry gestured to the bits of paper that still covered the writing table. “I'm still not over a lot of things—things from my childhood, feeling afraid nearly every day of my life. Mostly I still have nightmares about the war as if it happened yesterday.”

Draco reached out and gave Harry's hand a squeeze. 

“You know I had a connection to Voldemort. I could see what he was doing, and I could feel his rage. And when I cast Unforgivables myself, well, I've tried to tell myself that it was war, and I had to do it, but I felt the way he felt. I felt that same rage at Amycus Carrow.” 

“Casting an unforgivable isn't just a legal distinction, you know.”

Harry's eyes went wide. “I wondered, sometimes, if it made me a bad person. If it hurt my soul.”

“No, not like that, I don't think. Your soul is the last thing that can be corrupted, and it takes intentional, horrible acts of evil for that to happen. You and I used dark magic because we had to, not because we wanted to. But it still hurts you. All dark magic does. My father can barely hold his wand anymore. He pretends he can, but he was always more bravado than anything else.”

Draco had never told anyone that, but it didn't feel like a betrayal to his father. Draco rarely talked about the effects the war had on him or what he experienced. Hermione and Charlie knew bits and pieces, but they never saw Draco right after the war, not the way Harry had. Harry had seen Draco at his worst, even though the time they had spent together after the war was mostly spent fucking and talking about anything except the reason why they were both trying to avoid the world by staking claim in a house where neither really wanted to be.

“But I don't have anything physically wrong with me,” Harry said.

“Sleeplessness, nightmares, anxiety,” Draco listed his own symptoms that he was sure he saw reflected in Harry. “Those all have physical repercussions, but dark magic can corrupt you in your mind too.”

“Do you think that's why I-” Harry cut himself off. “Why I feel so broken?”

“I suspect you might not be as susceptible to dark magic as other wizards, but you still carry the scars.” 

“So what do I do?”

“You do what we all do. You work around it.”

“How?”

“You live. You keep helping Luna. You spend time with the people who love you. You buy back your stakes in your dreadful Quidditch team. You don't give up. You don't let darkness win.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“I told you before, Harry. I try really hard.”

After their conversation, Draco got Harry to admit that he hadn't slept in three nights, so he forced him to take a draught of dreamless sleep potion and tucked him into bed. 

“But I ruined our evening,” Harry mumbled as Draco arranged the pillows.

“Make it up to me next time,” Draco said with a wink. 

With his evening free, Draco decided to call on his parents. His mother was happy to see him; his father was as taciturn as ever. When Draco excused himself to freshen up before the meal was served, he paused in front of Snape's portrait. 

“How goes the wooing?” Severus asked with a practised disinterest that Draco didn't believe for a second.

“Why are you even asking?”

“In spite of everything, I'd like you to be happy and if Potter is what makes you happy....” Snape trailed off, his voice sounding wistful.

Draco wondered sometimes about the relationship Severus had to Harry. He knew from Severus himself that Harry had visited his portrait. The corridor of war heroes was placed in Hogwarts at Harry's behest. They were going to put it in the Ministry, but since the battle had happened at Hogwarts and all of the fallen felt more comfortable there, the Ministry eventually agreed.

There was bad blood between Severus and Harry that Draco had never really understood. He'd asked Harry about it once, one of the few times they had tried to have a serious conversation that wasn't about sex positions or fit Quidditch players. Draco only got as far as learning that it was something that went back between Snape and Harry's parents when they were children. But he never got any details, and he wasn't about to ask Severus. Not long after that particular conversation, Harry vanished from Grimmauld Place.

But sometimes when he looked at Snape's portrait, he couldn't help but feel like he was looking into a mirror.

Draco answered him honestly. “I think it's going well, Severus. I think we could be good together, good for each other, but I still feel like he's holding something back from me.” 

“Potter hasn't had the easiest time,” Severus said diplomatically. “I know it's not your strength, but I think a little patience might serve you well.” 

It was the nicest thing Draco had ever heard Severus say about Harry. 

“I can do that.” 

“Pushing a hothead like Mr. Potter is liable to backfire on you.”

That sounded more like the Snape Draco knew. 

So Draco continued as he was, not pushing, but not letting Harry slip away. He owled Harry a package of custom Every-Flavour Beans comprised only of the treacle tart flavour. Harry sent him back a cookbook full of chocolate recipes.

Then, in an effort to make up for the date he ruined, Harry dragged Draco to Rose's school holiday pageant that weekend. Draco hated to admit it, but he was growing fond of Rose. She had remarkable talent for playing the organ, and after her lessons with Blaise, she would ask Draco question after question about timbers and pitch and the history of organ building. As a Christmas present, he was going to take her along to one of his appointments. 

Hermione had hugged him when he asked her if it would be all right.

Harry and Draco went to the Granger-Weasleys afterwards for wassail and Christmas cookies. The entire Weasley clan was there, along with some parents of Rose and Hugo's friends, and Ron's friends from the Ministry. Everyone treated Harry and Draco like a couple. Even Charlie raised his glass to them with a beaming smile, and Harry smiled back. Draco couldn't help the thrill that shot through his body when he would catch Harry looking at him from across the room.

Pansy came over and nudged his shoulder. “So this is why you've been turning down my dinner invitations and having me set up rooftop picnics?”

The truth was far more complicated, but when it came down to it, everything came down to Harry. 

“Thank you again for that,” Draco said. “The evening was a thorough success.”

“I'm happy for you, Draco. I've been rooting for the two of you since fifth year.”

Draco shook his head at Pansy's teasing. It was true he'd always had a little bit of a crush on Harry, but he'd had lots of crushes in his adolescence. He never overtly advertised that he preferred boys. Even if Pansy had suspected way back in fifth year, she would have been far more likely to discover his crush on Oliver Wood.

“I mean it, Draco. There's always been something between you two.”

As if sensing their conversation, Harry chose that moment to look up at Draco and shoot him a smile. 

“See?” Pansy said with a smirk, before flitting off to find Blaise.

Rose made them turn on the wireless at 8 o'clock.

“The new Weird Sister's song is premièring tonight. I want to hear it,” she insisted to Hermione, who complied more readily than Draco would have guessed.

Everyone filled up the room. Draco shouldn't have been surprised to see that both children and adults were interested in hearing the new song. Harry came to Draco's side, his cheeks flushed with drink. 

As soon as the song started, Harry's face went pale. Draco was sure no one else noticed, but there was clearly something wrong. He gave Harry's hand a squeeze and was about to ask him if he was all right when Harry opened his mouth and started singing along with the words. 

_All this time I was finding myself, and I_  
I didn't know I was lost.  
I didn't know I was lost. 

“How do you know the words, Uncle Harry?” Rose asked as the final notes of the song trailed off. 

“Sometimes musicians give important people advanced copies of their songs,” Hermione started to explain, when it was clear Harry wasn't going to field the question. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. 

“No,” Harry said, stopping Hermione's explanation. “That wasn't it. I- I know because I wrote it.”

The whole room went quiet. The DJ's voice was the only noise in the room, telling everyone that their pre-ordered copies of the album would be delivered in time for Christmas.

Harry's jaw dropped, as if he could not believe what he'd just admitted. Then with a pop, he was gone. 

Draco looked around the room at the surprised faces, knowing his own expression matched. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I-”

“Go,” Hermione said.

Draco Apparated into Harry's living room. Harry was standing by his desk sifting through papers, and didn't even look up at Draco's arrival. 

“Ah hah!” Harry said triumphantly, brandishing a crumpled piece of paper. Harry waved his wand and then the scrap flew in Draco's direction. 

The paper was actually a crumpled envelope, and Draco somehow knew it was the one he had seen Harry stuff inside his coat weeks before at Abbey Road. 

“You can open it,” Harry said, not looking up. “It's a royalty check. Though I'm guessing the amount is more than I figured.”

“So when Hermione was worried that you had stopped going into the city, you actually—”

“—got fired from writing lyrics for the Weird Sisters. Oh, and that collaboration they did with Celestina Warbuck for charity.”

“How long had you been writing for them?”

“I had songs on every one of their albums that came out after the war.”

Draco's stomach somersaulted. “You wrote 'Demons' on Phoenix Rising.”

“I did.” 

“Was it about--?”

“Yes.”

“Harry,” Draco whispered his name reverently. “The number of times I listened to that after you left.”

“It was the only way I knew how to deal with it,” Harry said. “What I said about writing was true. Only, I didn't write a memoir exactly. I ran into Donaghan at a memorial service after the war, and we got to talking, and it just happened. I've been co-writing their lyrics for years.”

“I guess I'm going to have to join the rest of the wizarding world and gather all their albums now.”

“I have extra copies I can give you.” 

“So what happened?” 

“They were getting pressure from their label on falling sales. They wanted more upbeat songs. Happier ones, not about inner demons or sharing in suffering or letting someone go because you didn't want to bring them down into your darkness. The label thought it had been long enough to still be affected by the war.”

He looked away.

“Harry,” Draco breathed.

Harry cleared his throat. “Donaghan was very apologetic about the whole thing. I didn't think they'd use this one. I never looked at the last check I picked up from the label.”

“So when Granger said that you had been acting funny the last few months it was because of that and not because of what you're working on with Luna.”

“Sometimes I hate how much she notices,” Harry said.

“But it's a good thing she does,” Draco murmured. 

“Without having that outlet, I needed to write something. Without the sight, I never even considered writing prophesies of my own. I was content with sorting them and interpreting them. But I knew Luna was coming into her sight, and it was on a whim that I accepted her invitation to go to her seers group. As it turns out, apparently my magical power means I'm a good conduit. Luna has been having a lot of success since I've started helping her.”

“So, have you been able to help her write any?”

“A few, yes. She gets words here and there, but mostly images. I've been using the Pensieve to help transcribe them. She's been focusing on the readings about me to start out with...” Harry trailed off.

“What is it?” Draco asked. 

“Well, for the last few months, all of the readings Luna was having about me were nearly identical. And in them, all she could see was you.”

Draco felt as though his breath had been knocked from him. “So maybe you do have prophetic powers.”

“You don't have to mock me.”

“I wasn't.” 

Harry looked up to meet Draco's eyes. It was obvious the moment he realized Draco was serious. He took a tentative step towards Draco, so Draco continued. “You were looking for a prophecy that would save you, give you purpose, right?”

“So you think my purpose in life is you?”

“Not just me, even I'm not that self-absorbed, but I do think you need me just as much as I need you.”

“You need me?”

“There's no one else in the world who comes close to understanding me or challenging me the way you do.” 

“Draco,” Harry said thickly. “There's no one else for me either. Part of me knew it back then. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you.” 

“It's only time.”

“I'm still not, I don't--” Harry started.

“I know. Me too,” Draco said. “But I'd rather be by your side as you find your way.” 

“I want that too,” Harry whispered. 

“Maybe you could write songs for someone else?” Draco suggested.

“Maybe. I just, there was something about their music that I liked. Donaghan and I became friends after the war. It affected all of them, but maybe him the most as a Muggle-born, so he understood things on a level the others didn't. He and Myron might do a side project together, but not while they're promoting this album.”

“Your own songs maybe?”

“You've heard me sing, Draco. And I can't be that person, the famous Harry Potter trying to start a singing career. I've had a lifetime's worth of fame.”

“I do remember the rise and fall of Rita Skeeter's short-lived acting career.”

“Exactly my point.” Harry said before looking at Draco curiously. “You know, there was a song, a melody, really, that you would hum sometimes. I still get it stuck in my head.” Harry hummed a few bars. “I've been trying to find it for years.”

Draco laughed. “You won't find it.” 

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I wrote it.”

“You wrote it?”

“For you.”

Harry flushed, and Draco had to hide his smile. The thing about Harry was that he was never good at taking a compliment. If you told him he looked good, he would blush. 

“Say something,” Draco whispered.

Harry responded, but not with words. He climbed onto Draco and kissed him. This time there was no hesitation between them. All the walls had finally come down and they were both ready to start rebuilding.

Draco's body protested the sofa, so they made their way to Harry's bedroom. There were familiar places on Harry's body, but it was also different. It was new. They were different people. They were men. They weren't running away from everything, or using each other to hide. But at the same time, when Draco pushed into Harry, it was like coming home after a long and tiresome journey. Draco belonged inside him as if they needed to be joined in that way for anything else to make sense.

Draco whispered declarations of love into Harry's skin, and he didn't imagine the “me too, me too,” from Harry's mouth.

They lay side by side afterwards, on Harry's rarely slept-in bed. Draco's fingers tapped against the mattress until Harry slipped his hand underneath his, stilling them with a squeeze.

“You should finish the song.”

“I can't play anymore, Potter, and it's a song for an organ.”

Harry poked him between his ribs. “You only call me 'Potter' when you know I'm right and you're wrong.”

Draco wanted to argue, but he was naked and sated and overwhelmed by the fact that Harry knew him so well, in spite of all the years between them spent in the doldrums of self-pity. 

“I'll fight you on this later,” he promised lazily, before pulling Harry to him. 

“I look forward to winning,” Harry murmured, kissing away Draco's attempt at retaliation. 

As it turned out, the conversation happened much sooner than Draco expected. It was the next Tuesday afternoon when Draco was startled by Harry entering his flat. He was in the kitchen, preparing vegetables for a stew when he heard the rush of the Floo. 

“Draco?”

“In the kitchen,” he called back. Moments later he felt Harry's lips press against the back of his neck. “Not that I'm not glad to see you, but aren't you going to Luna's today?”

“No, I had a meeting today. I wasn't expecting to get out so early, and I already cancelled with Luna.”

“A meeting?”

“Hermione, you know how she meddles, well, she gave my unused lyrics to a friend of hers at Obscurus Books, and now they want me to write a book of poetry.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No, I don't know. Yes. I think maybe, yes.”

“If you're hesitating, you must have a reason.” 

“Well, it's such a stupid thing. No one's a poet. I should be doing something important.”

“But it is important.” 

Harry shook his head. 

“No, listen to me, Harry. Poetry is the oldest form of writing we have. You saved the world. Now you can bring it a little bit of truth.”

“I think you're overestimating my abilities.”

“Do you know how often I listened to 'Phoenix Rising'? It meant a lot to me after the war to hear how hard it was for someone else. Now I know that someone was you, but it spoke to a lot of people. The band wouldn't have played it if they hadn't felt it. Your words can touch a lot of people.”

“I just never thought about it before.”

“Well, it goes to show there is a world of possibility out there. You said it yourself—the future is malleable.”

Harry appeared to consider it for moment, and then asked, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I know you like tuning organs, but you've tamped down that part of you who used to sing in the shower, who taps his fingers along to every song he hears, who hums under his breath when he's bored. You're brilliant, Draco. I had a song you wrote stuck in my head for twelve years.”

Draco sighed. He knew Harry wasn't going to let it go. “I told you. It was meant to be for an organ. That's the way I hear it. It'd be impossible to separate it.”

The exasperation in Harry's voice was clear. “I don't think you even notice, but you always have a song playing in your head. It doesn't have to be that one. ” 

Draco shook his head. “I never considered myself a songwriter. When I was learning to play I only wrote little bits and pieces of songs. The song I wrote for you, Harry, it was-it was special. I never finished it because you...you left.” 

“Well maybe you can finish it now.” Harry softened his voice and came over to lean against the counter beside Draco, giving his shoulder a nudge. 

“I'll think about it.”

“So why is my poetry important and you're allowed to 'think about it'?”

“Because I like my work. It's not going to change anyone profoundly, but as foolish as it may sound, I take pride in it. I don't know if I want to go down the road of making music. It's an art derived by inspiration, and I see the patrons of the Conservatory, Harry, some of them are barmy. Maybe I've had enough dealings with madness for a lifetime.”

“Well maybe I don't want to go down the road of poetry for the same reason.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest.

“It doesn't have to be poetry. It doesn't have to be foretellings or working for the Ministry or owning a bloody Quidditch team.” As he spoke, Draco grew more confident with the truth behind his words. Harry's power meant nothing unless Harry had a reason to use it he believed in. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Happy? I don't even know what that means anymore, Draco. It's just a word that's lost all meaning to me.”

Draco turned and unfolded Harry's arms so he could grab his hands. “Well then how about this, I want you to wake up in the morning and be glad you're alive.”

Harry leaned in until their foreheads touched. “Why do you care?” he whispered. 

Draco leaned back and cupped Harry's face, forcing Harry to meet his eyes. “Because, for some unfathomable reason, my ability to be glad I'm alive depends on yours.”

“So this is purely self-serving,” Harry said, the smile at the corner of his lips betraying him.

“Purely,” Draco murmured as he leaned in for a kiss.

If music and sweet poetry agree,  
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,  
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,  
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.  
-Richard Barnfield (1598)

**Author's Note:**

> You can leave a comment here or [on Livejournal](http://hd-erised.livejournal.com/6025.html).


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